Make a cake with someone. Make a cake for someone. Make your cake and eat it, too!

My friend Theresa in Juneau, Alaska, made this oh-so-beautiful wintercake with her granddaughter, Piper. Piper’s Christmas presents all centered around cooking:

Her brother Jaiden, helped, too. Piper loved mixing the fruits in with her hands.

I was looking at these wonderful cake pictures, and I remembered another wonderful cake. A little over a year ago, I was a visiting artist/writer at Cuttyhunk School on Cuttyhunk Island, in Massachusetts. It’s a tiny island, about 3/4 mile wide and 1-1/2 miles long. A few hundred summer cottages, and about 12 year-round residents. They chose Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea as their community read. The ferry only runs on Mondays and Fridays in November, so I was there for 5 wonderful days.

I’ll show you the cake first, made by Michelle Carvalho, teacher/principal, in honor of the Secret Sisters:

That’s a sandcastle on top, as I’m sure you realized.

The school itself is small, but well equipped:

I spent a couple of hours there each day, and we did art and writing workshops.

My hosts took me for some beautiful hikes around the little island.

I had some lovely lunches with the islanders, and the rest of the time, I was free to roam.

The last student of the school, a fourth-generation Cuttyhunker, graduated this past May, and now attends boarding school on the mainland.

Michelle Carvalho, the teacher, is in the process of converting the school into Cuttyhunk Steam Academy, where groups of students can come and do STEAM workshops. If you are interested in this, do a Google search for Cuttyhunk Steam Academy, and scroll until you come to an entry that says it is a Google site. (it may be on the second page of scrolling.) Michelle is a wonderful teacher, the island is beautiful. If this seems like a possibility for you, I recommend it.