March 7: Lemon Cheese Cake

March 10th is Judith Allgood Page's birthday.  Mama Judy is the primary reason that I have such a varied skill set.  She is the primary reason that my mother is an accomplished artist.

After her parents divorced, my mom was raised by her mother, Maggie, and her grandparents, Mama Judy and Papa (Calvin Thomas Page).  Judy was an incredibly talented but frustrated artist.  She drew and painted on scraps of brown paper grocery sacks just to have a creative outlet.  But, she was best known for her fine and fabulous sewing.  She created couture for all of the ladies and girls in our family.  Judy made doll clothes and trimmed hats for the little gift shop in College Park that she owned with her sister Bessie.  Judy made all of my mother's clothes, her trousseau, and the trousseaux for all of the cousins.  She copied designer garments worn my Jackie Kennedy for my mom to wear to college parties.

Mom modeling a May Queen dress in her room

Cousin Betty modeling Marie Antoinette

Judy created elaborate, intricate costumes.  She was asked to make costumes for the statuary at The Church of the Immaculate Conception for the saints' feast days plus gowns for that church's May Queen (child pageant).  She made a pink Marie Antoinette costume for my mother to wear to the Roosevelt High School French Club Versailles costume party and used tea to stain the pink lace to perfectly match the taffeta.

The next year's French Club party was in a Mardi Gras theme; for that, she built a Spanish dancer costume that I recycled for one of my high school costume dances in the 1980's.  Cousin Pat commented recently that Judy "could have given Edith Head a run for her money."

Me as a Spanish Dancer c.1984

Judy made all of my baby clothes.  She made me a blue corduroy, ice-skating costume for my lessons from The Ice Capades school when I was ten-years-old.  She even lined the matching bloomer-briefs with waterproofing so that my bottom wouldn't get cold and wet when I inevitably fell!

Dorothy Hamill's got nothin' on me!

But, most importantly, she taught me how to sew.  I sit here today in the midst of production as the Costume Designer for Sweeney Todd at DramaTech Theatre at Georgia Tech (opens April 3rd).  I think about Mama Judy every time I sit down at the sewing machine.  I know she's cussing along with me when I make a mistake and have to rip out the seams, especially during the all-nighters.

Cooking lemon cheese in double boiler

So, I am taking a break from sewing today to bake her favorite cake, a lemon cheese.  She also loved coconut cake with lemon filling and Japanese fruit cake at Christmas.  Sensing a citrus pattern?  Many people think that I mean lemon cheesecake when I refer to a lemon cheese.  It is actually a simple 1-2-3-4 cake with tangy, rich lemon cheese (lemon curd) as the filling and icing.  Judy always made it with four layers to allow the most lemon filling, so I have done the same.

But now, I had better get back to the sewing room...


Next Saturday: Boston Cream Pie