Of the many lasting memories I’ll always cherish of my grandmother, very few can top the delicious flavor my taste buds experienced when dining at her home. Of course, I had my favorite dishes that she’d uniquely prepare (haluski, halubki, meatloaf, homemade pizzas, pagatch – just to name a few!). Because I’d hate for my children to never have tasted such ethnic bliss, both my fiancé and I have recently taken strides - albeit slow - in learning how to cook these family traditions.

Unexpectedly, my taste buds found themselves on a magical journey back to my childhood today as I sat down for dinner at The River Café in Morrill Tower. What started as casually adding a simple slice of yellow cake with chocolate icing to my tray of chicken, rice, and green beans soon turned into a world of flashbacks when I realized that this cake tasted exactly like the kind my grandmother had so often given to me following dinner at her place.

In reality, it was always just your basic slice of cake. My grandma had certainly produced more extravagant desserts in her day, and I guess you can say that this type of cake was her sort of easy-bake cake that she could whip up in a jiffy and shell out to visitors on-the-fly. As for me, I sat in the dining hall tonight devouring two pieces of this cake. Yes, I went back for seconds, just as I often did at grandma's. The first piece went down too quickly!

Although tonight I may have sat alone at a 6-seated dining hall table facing an oversized fountain drink dispenser, all I could think of for those beautiful 2 minutes of cake eating was my grandma’s back porch with the Cleveland Indians on TV, playing 500-bid with my partner (grandpa) against my grandma and brother (a game which my grandmother had proudly taught to me at a young age and then continued to brag to her beauty shoppe friends for the next 10 years that I picked up on the game within 10 minutes of instruction), drinking endless Sprites (they really should've cut me off at 2 per day), and eating this basic yellow cake with chocolate icing until my father came to pick us up.

Some say that it’s a grandparent’s job to spoil grandchildren. Therefore, it’s my understanding that the yellow cake I received today was passed on by my grandmother from above, because today I was certainly spoiled. It's practically been years since I remember the way that cake tasted, and it certainly hit the spot.

But, as you may have noticed, today wasn't just about the cake.