Old Friends

Sheri Soulis Jenkins, December 21, 1963-November 22, 2002

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
~William Shakespeare

“Best friends are made through smiles and tears and sometimes that fades over
miles and years....but I knew right away when I saw you again, Emily~we’ll always be friends...”
                            From the song, “Emily” by Beth Nielsen Chapman

http://youtu.be/Ul2hSba5pOs Old Friends~Bookends/Simon & Garfunkel
http://youtu.be/qxd-7dTsUfQ  You and Me Against the World~Helen Reddy
http://youtu.be/ttqgwlCsXZM SNL-Point/Counterpoint Skit~Jane, You Ignorant _____!

Eleven years ago, I lost my first friend to cancer — one of my oldest.
The first, close friend we lose to death is a life-changing event.  It brings mortality up close and personal to us.  When it happens early-on in life—it’s an indescribable, undefinable feeling.  As you get older, you begin to expect the passing of loved ones, but not when you’re 38.  Not when you’re young like that; when your child is five; and when you have so much life yet to live – so much still to contribute and give to the world.  You just don’t expect something like that to happen to anyone you know at 38 years old.  It’s a hard pill to swallow — one of those bitter ones that life sometimes deals us.
It sucks!  Plain and simple.
I met Sheri the summer of 5th grade moving into 6th.  Our parents worked at the same school: her father was the Assistant Principal, and my mother was the Administrative Assistant.  I was four months older than Sheri.  By the time our paths had crossed, I had already spent two years at Hendricks.  Sheri would be in the 6th grade at Hendricks the beginning of the school year like me, and our parents thought it would be good for us to meet – for her to have a friend at school when she began there.  Starting a new school can be a daunting and nightmarish thing - particularly for a young girl.
We hit it off immediately.  We met at school a couple of times a week and spent our mornings hanging out in the library, swinging on the playground [we loved that] and talking, walking around school and talking some more.  We’d eat our lunch sometimes out under a large Oak tree that was a favorite spot.  We didn’t have computers, tablets or video games back then.  We had to create our own fun and use our imaginations.  We both had good imaginations and always had a blast together.  After lunch, Mr. Soulis would give us each a dime, and we’d walk a couple of blocks up to the 7-11 and get an Icee and a nickle candy, then walk back to school talking all the while.  You may wonder what girls could possibly spend so much time talking about?  Trust me when I tell you that the topics are endless.   Good times...
Some Friday nights, I’d sleep over at her house.  Others, she’d sleep over at mine.  We’d go to the skating rink.  Gosh....we had SO much fun!  We’d stay up late into the night and do more of that marathon talking about everything and sometimes nothing in particular.  And, we’d laugh.  Oh, we laughed a lot.
As the summer wore down, we eagerly awaited the assignment of classes.  There were to be three 6th grade classes, we learned.  We prayed a lot that we’d get in the same class together.  We must have bugged our parents incessantly for weeks on end about putting us in the same class.
“It’s not done that way!” they both told us.
“Why not?” we asked.
“Because it’s not.”
“How is it done?” I asked my mother one day, not satisfied with that answer.
“It’s based on your grades and your test scores,” she told me.
“My grades and test scores are good,” I said.  “Are Sheri’s?”
“I can’t tell you that!” she said firmly.
I called Sheri.
“Are your grades and test scores good?”
“Yeah,” she said.  “Pretty good.  Why?”
“Mom said that the classes are based on that, and mine are good, but she wouldn’t tell me what yours are.  I hope they’re the same amount of good.  Has your father said anything?”
“No,” she said glumly.
I huffed.  “What good is it to have parents who work at the school if you can’t find anything out?”
“He’s pretty tight lipped about it,” she said.
“He’s not giving anything away at all?” I lamented.
“He’s got a good poker face,” she added.  “What about your Mom?”
“Nothing,” I sulked.  “They know how much this is killing us!  You’d think they’d have a little mercy!”
She laughed.  “It’ll be okay.”
“If you say so,” I said.
“I’ve got a feeling,” she added.
“I hope so.”
“Call me when you get your schedule in the mail,” she said.
“Okay, and you call me when you get yours.”
I remember when that call came.
“I got mine,” I told her.  “Did you get yours?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’d you get for Home Room?”
I remember closing my eyes and holding the phone white-knuckled as I waited for her to tell me what our fate was going to be for the school year.  Everything was riding on her answer. [That’s how it felt back then.]
“Mrs. Lester—Algebra.”
My hand fisted in victory as I squeezed it and happily squealed, “Yay and Yes!” into the phone.
“Oh my God!” she squealed back.  “Really?”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I squealed louder as if the lottery was ours.
And we laughed and began to talk 90 to nothing as our excitement built for the upcoming school year.  Let me just say that’s the ONLY time in my life that I’ve ever been happy about a math class. [LOL]
We were inseparable back then.
I’ve written of Sheri before and of some of these events in our life, but not in detail.  The details are good and important.  They give insight into the specialness of our friendship.  I’d like to share some of those details today:
I remember we were both in debate club.  I’ll never forget one of the most gut-wrenching moments in that club for both of us was when we were pitted against each other in a debate.  It had never occurred to either of us that such a thing could happen–would be done. We always thought that we’d be on the same team of whatever debate was taking place.
Looking back on it, I’m sure the teacher [I won’t name her out of respect.] who oversaw that club thought it would make for a good debate.  Sheri and I were both smart young girls, we weren’t afraid to speak our minds, and we both had very definite ideas on things.  So, when the topic of which animal made a better pet came up, Sheri had answered cat, and I had answered dog.  Therein lied the making of a good debate. I felt sick to my stomach when it was announced that we’d be up against the other.  I looked over at her and saw that her face looked the way my stomach felt.  She didn’t want to do it either.    The point of a debate, after all, was to win – to beat the other person–to be victorious over them.
I remember we both left the club meeting that day, and we walked all the way over to the playground in silence.  She took a swing, and I took a swing.  We pushed ourselves back and forth for a minute or two in more silence.  I remember that conversation like it was yesterday.
“I don’t want to go against you like that,” I finally said.  “I don’t want to beat you or try to make myself look better than you.  It’s a stupid debate! You’re my best friend.”
She sighed relief that I’d said it.  “You’re my best friend too. I don’t want to beat you either,” she said.  “And, I don’t want to say anything that could make you upset with me.  I don’t want us to get angry with each other because of this debate.”
I looked over at her.  “So, what do we do?”
“Can we do a friendly point-counterpoint?” she asked, not certain if her suggestion made much sense.
I started to laugh and brought up Saturday Night Live’s version of this concept with Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd.
“I can,” I teased. “So long as you don’t call me an ignorant slut!”
Sheri doubled over in the swing laughing.
“I won’t if you won’t!” she agreed.
We were too young for that term to ever be applied to us, but it was a mood lightener and made for a good laugh between us.
She held her hand out, and we shook on it.
The outcome of that debate went like this: it was the first and only time in our school that a draw was called in a debate.  No one lost nor won.  We held our own against the other, which had never been anything up for debate.  We knew we could hold our own against the other.   What we did, however, was we played off of the other and the other’s information in a way that didn’t give a clear-cut win of which animal was the best household pet.  Sheri and I conspired together to make certain that was the end point to the debate–no clear winner. We worked REALLY hard practicing our responses together with each other to make certain that we kept the argument on equal ground.  We were very proud of that outcome.  I remember leaving the makeshift stage, stepping behind the curtain and us high-fiving each other before we hugged.  It was a relief that it was over! We had managed to pull it off.  We had argued our case without undermining it or each other.  I’ll tell you the secret to our success. I’ve never told this to anyone before, and I don’t think Sheri would mind: Sheri and I worked on each other’s arguments.  She gave me tips on what made a dog the better pet, and I gave her tips on why a cat was better one.   We figured if our voice was in both sides of the argument that it would level the overall field.  It worked.  We were never pitted against each other again.
Then, there was the cheerleading-pep club matter between us.
“Come on, Jhill!” she begged.  “Try out for cheerleading with me!”
“No way!” I said.
“Why not?” she asked, not understanding my reluctance.  “I want you to stand beside me and root for the home team.”
“How bout I stand in front of you and root for the home team,” I offered my alternative.
“Pep Club is not the same thing!” she pouted.
“I’m not trying out for cheerleading, Sheri!” I adamantly told her.
“Why not?” she pushed harder.
“I can’t do a split,” I rattled off.  “And, if I try to do a cartwheel, God only knows where I’ll land with that, and last and most importantly, you couldn’t pay me to wear that little shorty skirt you have to wear!”
“What’s the big deal with the skirt?” she said in an exasperated tone.
“Um....hello!” I shot back.  “I don’t have the legs for that like you do!”
She frowned. “Your closest friends are going out for cheerleading,” she told me something I already knew.  “You’re going to be the only one not out there with us.”
I looked at her as tears came.  Yeah.  That was true, and it hurt.  I didn’t like thinking about being left out.  But, I wouldn’t try for cheerleading.
“What?” she pled.  “Tell me.”
I remember my lip quivered when I told her the truth of the situation.  “I don’t want to embarrass myself!  I can’t do a split, and you know that you can’t make the squad if you can’t do that.  You’ve seen my cartwheel, which is crappy at best.  I don’t want to get out there and look like an idiot — have people laugh at me!  There’s nothing worse than people laughing at you!”
“They won’t laugh!” she tried to assure.
I gave her a look.  “Have YOU seen my cartwheel?”
She laughed.  It was okay.  I was going for the laugh then.
“There’s nothing wrong with knowing your limitations and knowing your strong suits,” I told her.  “I’ve got good hand motion, and I can jump up and down with the best of you, I’m full of pep and I can cheer my heart out, but I can’t do the rest of it, and the rest of it is important.  You KNOW it’s important!  Don’t ask me to make a fool of myself.”
Softly, she said, understanding. “I’d never ask you to do that.”
I nodded my appreciation and said cheerfully as I wiped my eyes.  “I’ll be good on the Pep Squad, but I won’t make the cheerleading team, if I try for it.  You and I both know that!”
It was a moment of vulnerability for me.  I opened myself up and showed it to her.  I didn’t need to say anything else.  She understood.   She didn’t want me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable in doing.   Sheri hugged me, and spoke no more of me going out for cheerleading.  Instead, we decided to bolster the Pep Club’s importance, mainly so that I wouldn’t feel out of the loop with the cheerleaders.  She and I, once again, worked in tandem playing off one another.  Sheri, with the other cheerleaders, would call out the letters — “Give me a R, Give me an A....” [Our team’s name was the Raiders] and I with my pom poms in hand and my Pep Squad jumpsuit would jump up and down and move my hands just as she did and give em right back to her.   It didn’t surprise her that I became President of the Pep Club.  She knew my strengths, just as I knew my weaknesses, and I acted upon them accordingly.  We were a good team.
There are so many stories I could tell. We had good times...so many of them.
A lot of things connected us – some private which I choose to keep that way, but there was a song back then, that made me think of us based on some of the things that we discussed with the other and went through.  The song was called “You and Me Against the World”.  It felt like that sometimes, and that’s okay.  As long as you’ve got a good friend–a best friend standing next to you when life throws stuff at you, it doesn’t seem so bad.
Ninth grade was the last year we shared together at Hendricks.  Afterward, we were off to high school.  I knew I was going to Bolles.  I remember when I found out that she was going to Wolfson.  It was a panic moment.  Things were going to change.  We were going in different directions, and I wasn’t going to be seeing her the way that I had for the previous four years.  It was disconcerting and unsettling.  We were best friends, and things were changing between us. We couldn’t stop it.
“You could always go to Wolfson,” she suggested.
I chuckled nervously.  “You could always go to Bolles.”
We both knew that our paths were set, and we actually couldn’t.  It was one of our first life-lessons.  It was a hard one – the letting go so that we could find our own ways.  But, there was a saying back then that we both loved and would prove true for us: “if you love something, set if free.  If it comes back to you, it’s yours.  If it doesn’t, it never was....”
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
“Promise?” I asked.
We pinky sweared on it.
As we both suspected and knew in our hearts, things did change when we went to other schools – new friends, new school interests.  The first time we got together after the new school year began, it felt awkward because we weren’t in the same place anymore, and we didn’t have the same things in common.  The friends she spoke of, I didn’t know and vice versa.  Her complaints about teachers meant nothing to me nor mine to her.   Slowly, over time, we simply began to check on one another through our parents.
I remember running into her one summer afternoon at Florida Junior College.  It was a wonderful run-in.  We laughed and hugged when we saw each other, then went for coffee, catching up in person for a change.
I remember the last thing I ever said to her in person, looking into her eyes, was how good it was to see her again.  She said it back to me.
“Let’s not wait so long next time to catch up,” I said.
She smiled and nodded.
“Let’s not,” she agreed.
Life and circumstances, however, can sometimes get in the way of best intentions.
As previously mentioned, my mother and her father remained friends.  Once again, Sheri and I reverted to keeping up with each other through them.  We would continue to do that over the years.
It’s how I found out that she was sick.  My mother called me the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2001 to tell me the news.  It was November 26th, and I’d not been home from work very long when the phone rang.   I will never forget the feeling that went through me when Mom told me that Sheri had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only four months to live.   Sucker-punched.  That’s what it felt like.
There have been a handful of times in my 50 years of life when something literally took me to my knees.  That news was one of those times.  I went numb.  I felt my knees buckle, and sat down before I fell down.  Everything inside me went shakey.   When I got off the phone, I cried a river.   I could not imagine what must have been going through her mind, nor could I fathom the fear she must have been feeling for so many different reasons?  My heart hurt so bad for her.  In that moment, I spiraled right back to that first summer when we met — when we were running around the school yard, playing and swinging and going to the 7-11 and talking non-stop about everything and any thing.  I didn’t sleep that night.  I kept trying to put myself in her place, and every time I tried to imagine it, I broke down and sobbed.  The moment my mother told me that Sheri was sick, the years melted away, and all that remained beneath the layers of it was my friend.  My dear friend from Jr. High School was in trouble — serious trouble.  I knew she was probably terrified.   I knew I would be.
The next day, I reached out over the miles and years and reconnected with her in the most delicate way I knew how.  I wrote her a letter.  I also went and bought her a teddy bear.  I squeezed it tight, giving it the biggest hug I could muster, and I told her that my hug was in there and whenever those moments came when she was scared or lonely or just needed a hug, to go to that bear and just hold on.  Sometimes, in life, we all need a little something extra to hold onto.  Knowing her, she’d try to be brave for everyone else.   I just wanted her to have something in her moments to cling to if she needed it.  I also wanted her to know that I was there, if she needed me.  Anything she needed, I was there for her.
My mother told me that Sheri was trying to put a book together for her daughter, Aliya.  Things she wanted her to know as she got older.  I thought about that–what a lovely idea that was – how much that would mean to her child as she got older and wanted to know what her mother thought about dating or high school or getting married.
I’ve been told by family members and several friends that I’m the memory keeper.  I remember everything.  I have one of “those” minds.  So, I began to write to Sheri weekly.  I recalled memories from our childhood in an effort–a hope to help her recall things for her daughter.  Her mother later told me that Sheri would read the letters and laugh and say in awe that she’d forgotten that particular memory until she’d read my letter, and it would all come back to her.  I also learned that she took that bear I sent to her chemotherapy appointments.  It meant a lot to know that.
I also had a group of friends called the prayer warriors begin to pray for her, because I believe so strongly in the power of prayer.   I will tell you that I breathed a sigh of relief when March came and went [that four month period] and Sheri was still with us.  On the months went, writing and sharing memories with her.
It was clear to me as November came that things were getting tougher for her.  I had told her in that first letter that I’d written to her to hold on for a miracle, because I believed in them.  I had hoped and prayed for a miracle of complete healing for her.  Sometimes though, the miracle is living eight months beyond what the doctors originally predicted for you.
My mother called me on the last Tuesday of her life and told me that she’d taken a turn, and to step up the prayers on her behalf and for the family.  I told her the Prayer Warriors were already round-the-clock praying for everyone.   My mother and I shared a teary moment together on the phone.  It was a comfort to me, and I remember wondering who was comforting Sheri’s mother and her daughter in that moment?  Her father—.   I cried some more.
Sheri’s last night on earth, one of my friend’s in Chicago, went to her Catholic church and prayed all night for her—holding vigil.  It was amazing that people who didn’t even know her were praying like that for her because they were my friends and loved me.  Ties that bind are strong ones and connect us all.   Through me, each of them said they felt they knew her.  It was such a lovely gesture.  The depths of friendship is a powerful well-spring.   It is one of my sources of greatest strength, and it did not fail me in that moment of need.
It’s odd, I woke up Friday morning the 22nd, not feeling well—feeling out of sorts.  I went to work, but around 10:30 a.m., I went to the ladies room and got sick to my stomach.  My boss saw me coming out of the restroom, and told me to go home.  I didn’t argue.
On my way home, I had to pull over.  Christmas songs had begun being played on the radio, and one came on that hit me hard.
I’ve asked before in my blog, if you all believe in signs?  I do.  The song that played on the radio in that moment seemed like a sign to me from God.  It was called, “Celebrate Me Home” by Kenny Loggins.  I call it Sheri’s song now.  I’d heard that song so many times before, but I’d never heard it.  Do you know what I mean?  Oh, I cried.  It wasn’t long after I got home that my mother called to tell me that Sheri had passed.  My heart already knew it.  I think my physical reaction at work had been because it sensed that she had finally left us.
She’s been gone 11 years today — Friday, November 22nd.  It’s just like it was then: a Friday, only her daughter is 16 now instead of five years old.  It gives me pause.
Next week, Aliya will turn 17.  Her birthday is one week to the day after her mother passed.  I remember last year when James, Sheri’s husband–Aliya’s father, send me Aliya’s Sweet 16th birthday invitation via email.  I took my laptop out on my back deck and sat looking at the pictures on it then out at the leaves in all of its autumn glory.  It was a beautiful day.  I thought of Sheri as I looked at all the pictures on the invitation of this young girl on the cusp of young womanhood.  I saw Aliya’s father in her, but I also saw traces of her mother, my childhood friend, in her as well.  Years.  More of them now had accumulated that Aliya had not shared with her mother than those that she had – twice as many more.  That fact always feels wrong to me.   She’s a beautiful young woman just like her mother was.  Smart.  She’s very involved in Girl Scouts. She has a lot of friends.  Sheri would be so proud of the young woman Aliya has become.  We spoke a lot about children and motherhood back when we were young girls.   I can’t help wishing somehow that she could be here to see her daughter almost all grown up.  I can’t help wishing somehow that Aliya could have gotten to have the opportunity to have known her mother as a woman and a friend not just as a mother the way that I’ve gotten to know mine over the years.  It is a most precious gift.  Oh....to have magical powers to make that so....but I digress.
At least they had five years together—of loving each other—of bonding—of experiences—of memories.  That means everything.  Though she had just a few short years with her daughter, Sheri made her imprint on Aliya.  There are echos of her that clearly resonate.  It is the gift of spiritual legacy.  For those of us who were blessed to have known and loved her, she left us richly endowed with her incredible grace notes.  The last year of her life, that’s what she was to me: a grace note, much like the one her mother found written to me among her personal effects after she had gone to heaven.  It was unfinished, like her life that ended too soon.  In the letter, Sheri was struggling to find a way to thank me for that last year.  She couldn’t find the words she wanted, and she didn’t finish it, but her mother thought I’d want it anyway.  She was right about that.  It came in my Christmas card just a month after her passing.  I remember the tears as I saw her handwriting and read the beginnings of her message that she’d been unable to find the words to finish.  It was alright.  We never needed words between us.  I knew what my role in the last year of her life had meant to her, and it meant SO much that it had mattered to her with ALL that she was dealing with to even try to tell me as much.  I remember clutching it to my heart as the tears came and looking upward as the words of Meister Eckhart came, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is ‘thank you’, it will be enough.”  It was the best present I got that year for Christmas.  I treasure it to this day.
Today, I remember Sheri and celebrate the gift that she was in my life.  I hear the words of “You and Me Against The World” echo in my mind as I think about her:

“And, when one of us is gone, and one of us is left to carry on,
Then remembering will have to do.  Our memories alone will get us through.
Think about the days of me and you~you and me against the world....”

Yeah, my dear friend.  I’m thinking about you and them today — all those good times! And, I’m also remembering what Dr. Seuss once said: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
Well, I’m smiling today, Sheri! I think of you now always with a smile, and I’m playing a song or two that I know you’ll remember today.  I'm playing them in your memory.  I hope you can hear them in heaven.
Time it was and what a time it was we had, you and me, my friend...I love you, Sheri, still....always...forever...

http://youtu.be/r3ClXw9D8mI  Emily~Beth Nielsen Chapman
http://youtu.be/NVbPgBGv2to  Celebrate Me Home~Kenny Loggins {Sheri’s Song}

Below is a copy of The Friendship Cake recipe.  I wrote about it a couple of years ago in my blog entry about Sheri.  I’ve pasted that part of the entry here for you, so that you’ll know its significance:

...I remember praying the day of her funeral that she’d send me a sign to let me know she was okay. I’m open to them, signs that is, and I recognize them when they come. The week after she passed, a friend gave me a book with a card that said, "Thinking of you. I hope this book will bring a smile to your sad heart."
The book was called The Friendship Cake. The weekend after her death, I laid on my sofa, curled up under a blanket, with my cat, Rhiannon, sleeping on top of me and read that book. My husband was in our back bedroom where we kept the computer working on something having to do with his master's degree, when I finished that book.
Here is what he heard:
"Oh my God! Oh my God!"
It was said in exclaimed disbelief, giddy relief with happy tears and the laughter that comes when you realize that a prayer has been answered.  The tone was high-pitched like a woman who'd just opened the front door to find Publisher's Clearing House standing there with a GINORMOUS check.
"What’s wrong?" he asked, running to me to see what was going on, not certain if I was hurt or what....
I looked at him as tears poured from my eyes and said over and over. "Sheri is in the friendship cake!"
He looked at me as if I’d landed from another planet. "What?"
I remember putting my hand to my mouth and nose as a fresh wave of tears came, trying to explain it. I held up the book and showed him the recipe. "Sheri. Look," and I pointed to the recipe. It called for cream Sherry. "She’s okay. I asked for a sign to let me know she’s alright, and the recipe for Friendship Cake calls for Sherry.  She's okay!  She's okay!  She's okay!"
He sat down and took my hand.
"Of all the things I could read," I told him. "Of all the recipes I could receive, and THIS is the one that comes to me: Sherry [Sheri] is in the Friendship Cake."
"Wow," he said. "That’s something, isn’t it?"
"It’s amazing.  It's something else!"
"Do you feel better?"
I sniffed. "Some."
"That’s good," he replied. "Maybe you should make that cake."
I nodded. "I  think I will."
And, I did. I went and bought a bottle of cream Sherry, and I made the Friendship Cake for her birthday that year and took it into work to share. It was delicious.  I saved two slices of it for Tom and I to share that night over coffee.
Nine years later, I’m passing on the story and the recipe. I hope you’ll try it, and think of Sheri when you do.   Thoughts of Sheri are a good thing.
I celebrate her today as I will continue to do every year on this day until my time in this life comes to its end. I will listen to her song and take comfort, and I will eat her cake and feel satisfied and grateful for the years she was a part of my life, because she came and touched me in ways that I cannot adequately express, and her imprint went deep.  Endless kind of deep.
I don’t know what her role is in heaven? I don’t know if she’s an angel or a beautiful flower. I like to think she’s with my father and grandparents giving all her mother-love to my children. That thought makes me very happy. Whatever she’s doing, this much I know: she has added beauty and grace to her forever home...

The Friendship Cake~Sheri’s Cake

1 box Duncan Hines butter cake mix
1(3 ½ ounce) package instant vanilla pudding
½ cup oil
½ cup water
½ cup cream sherry
1 cup pecans, finely chopped
4 eggs

Boiled dressing:

3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sherry wine
3 tablespoons water

Place cake ingredients in a mixing bowl - ½ cup of pecans; I use the other half to sprinkle around the bottom of the Bundt pan.

Mix on slow speed with electric mixer for 1 minute, then on medium speed for 3 minutes or until well-mixed.
Pour into a greased and floured tube pan (or Bundt pan).
Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour (Test to see if done with a toothpick). Let cake cool then turn onto cake plate just to make certain the cake comes out completely.  Put the cake back into the Bundt pan,
Boil dressing ingredients for 2 to 3 minutes. I take a knife and cut a circle around the Bundt cake’s bottom to open it up, then pour the boiled dressing into it.
Let it cool completely in pan before turning it out onto a cake plate.

Serve with a cup of tea and make certain a friend is nearby to share it with. Enjoy