Coconut Papaya Cake

Friends, I have to tell you about the week the Coconut Papaya Cake came back into my life. It started on Tuesday, which as everyone knows is the most emotionally confusing day of the week. Monday is Monday, Wednesday is hump day, but Tuesday? Tuesday just shows up. And this particular Tuesday, it showed up with a papaya. My neighbor Gloria left one on my porch with a sticky note that just said “for you, from the universe.” I’ve never seen Gloria talk to the universe, but I wasn’t about to question it.

Now, a papaya on its own is a lot of responsibility. It’s big, it’s orange, it’s sort of shaped like a football that went to finishing school, and it ripens on its own schedule. I set it on the counter next to my good wooden spoon (her name is Beverly, she’s been with me since 2009) and I just looked at it for two days. My husband Dale asked if I was “doing a staring contest with the fruit again,” and I told him it wasn’t a contest if you both win.

You see, Coconut Papaya Cake is a big deal in our family. My Aunt Ronda brought one back from a trip to Hawaii in 1994, or she says she did, though looking back it was probably from the airport bakery in Phoenix during her layover. Didn’t matter. She walked into Thanksgiving holding that cake like it was a newborn baby, and my cousin Trevor cried. Real tears. He was nineteen. Ever since then, any big family moment gets a Coconut Papaya Cake. Graduations, anniversaries, the time Dale finally got the garage door opener to work. Those are cake moments, and that’s just how we live.

So when that papaya finally went soft and sweet and smelled like a vacation I’ve never been on, I knew it was time. I pulled out a can of full-fat coconut milk (and let me tell you, do not try the light stuff, I did that once in 2016 and we don’t talk about 2016) and a big bag of shredded coconut. My youngest, Kaylee, wanted to help, which means she wanted to eat shredded coconut out of the bag by the fistful while telling me about a dream she had where our dog Biscuit was the mayor. I said that tracks. Biscuit has a very civic face.

There’s a moment while this cake bakes where the whole house smells like butter and sunshine and toasty coconut, and I swear the walls of my kitchen get a little bit happier. The cabinets I’ve been meaning to paint since we moved in look less beige. The faucet that drips in B-flat seems to hum along. Dale wandered in from the living room twice “just to get a glass of water,” and both times he forgot to get the water. That’s the power of Coconut Papaya Cake, my friends. It makes grown men forget their hydration.

And when that bright, tangy lime and papaya glaze goes on top and you sprinkle on that golden coconut, you’ll understand why Aunt Ronda carried hers like a baby and why Trevor cried. I didn’t cry this time, but I did call Gloria to say thank you, and she said, “For what?” So now I don’t know who left the papaya. Maybe it really was the universe. Either way, I made the cake, and I think that’s what the universe wanted all along.