Sparkly Upside-Down Cake
with ingredients both dense and fluffy
Sydney, New Year’s Eve, 2023
Pineapple cake and fireworks have something in common; both are designed to be enjoyed in an upside-down mode. One-hundred years ago, Dole Pineapple Company sponsored a product-moving pineapple recipe contest, which in turn popularized the American upside-down pineapple cake recipe. Perhaps this, along with New Year’s Eve, is something to celebrate.
“Moving to Australia during the winter/summer solstice, so far, is like living inside a pineapple upside-down cake.”
Moving to Australia during the winter/summer solstice, so far, is like living inside of a pineapple upside-down cake. If squinted at, this is a cake that looks just like any other sweet moulded cake. Looking more closely though, will show an unexpected arrangement of ingredients.
For instance, grocery shopping: the store, the aisles, the people, the hustle, are all the same. The products themselves, however, define an entirely new visual landscape. As things come into focus, nothing is in its usual place. Canned tuna is an entire aisle on its own, and one bunch of celery is as tall as my torso. Laundry detergents are called “Purity”, “Fluffy”, “Cuddly”, “Fab” and “Attack”; reading more like a list of desireable attributes of pet cats than the efficacies of cleanliness.
This upside-down, inside-out form applies to the landscape as well. This week, my family and I have traveled through cities, forests, mountains, and beaches. Through an unfocused lens, these are all just what they sound like, but the variances are both obvious and subtle. A dramatic comparison is the Kookaburra’s call (currently nesting in our backyard in Australia) to the Red Tailed Hawk’s (often found in our backyard in Kansas City).
Subtlety in Australia can be a bit more complex. I find that subtlety here relates to the aesthetics of density. On New Year’s Eve this year, one million people watched the famous fireworks shows in Sydney, displays that each lasted about 16 minutes time. Choreography of the fireworks could have easily stretched across two half-hour-long timeframes, but instead, a rich layering was favoured over a slower pacing of isolated bursts.
After spending a few days immersed in the hustle and bustle of Sydney, my family and I traveled to Jervis Bay to spend some quieter days along the coast. It is here in the clear ocean waters that density and fluffiness co-exist beautifully.
Sea kelp’s concentration of nutrients does not hinder its wonderful buoyancy. This is a reminder of how density can also be flexible in form, moving with ease from one state into another. Whether it is surrounded by air or water, incorporating the design of volumetric massing in relation to one’s immediate environment is a subtle skill indeed.
This reminds me of baking again, and how the first time I made my mom’s yeasted bun recipe, it turned out absolutely perfect. I was living in New Orleans at the time, and I thought that I must have had natural skills at breadmaking. The next time I made the same recipe, I lived in a much drier climate, and the bread was a disaster from start to finish.
Noticing densities and layering, in both nature and the built environment, is something I naturally do. Being in Australia for just a week now has already expanded my understanding of these variances through both materials and moments.