You can learn a lot about people by looking inside their refrigerators.

Today mine holds a large pot of spaghetti sauce full of meatballs, telling of tomorrow’s birthday dinner for my soon-to-be eleven year old granddaughter.  But other than this, there’s very little going on within the main stage.  Hardly no leftovers.  I’ve had such little interest in cooking, we’ve been eating out more than in.

This morning, it was the contents within our refrigerator door that captured my attention.  It began with the two bottles of fruit juice.  Bosom buddies of the elderly —  Grapefruit and cranberry juice — sure signs  that the house is inhabited by people entering their so-called ‘golden years.’  Back in the day of my youth, it was orange banana strawberry for me.  Or something else on the order of sweet.

These days, buttermilk is a staple in our fridge.  My husband uses it for his biscuits.  I use it for my chicken fry steak.  And tomorrow morning, I’m going to try to make Miss Tayler a Red Velvet Cake with it.

My mother was famous for her Red Velvet Cake, which she frosted with a short-hand version of German Chocolate Cake Frosting, holding back the pecans and coconut.

My grandchildren must believe that all grandmothers are created equal — that if Grandma Carol could bake red cake, that surely their Nana can as well.  And though my version looks like red cake, I can’t ever seem to get it out of the oven at just the right time.

As it approaches being done, I check it faithfully.  Toothpick in.  Wet.  Toothpick in.  Gooey.  Toothpick in.  Dry as a bone.

But God bless their little bones — their little hearts and especially their tummies.  Chock full of youthful bliss, as ones who surely believe in the goodness of orange strawberry banana or some other concoction of sweet juice, they consider this Nana’s red cake simply divine.