A Country Rag 
Country Special
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“The Death Cake Recipe”
by Carolyn Moore
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Up east in Tennessee where the mountain counties reach toward North Carolina are the neighborhood memories of Old Butler, now seen only in the reflection of a TVA lake named Watauga.
The idea to control floods that rushed through the mountains was initiated before World War II, but the war began and it was early in 1948 before the relocation of a town could begin again.
Joe Grindstaff's mother makes The Butler Death Cake. It goes to every wake held in the community. In Appalachia death is common and neighbors gather to remember and tell family stories. Eating is a part of burying in the mountains. Sometimes the food is badly needed and The Death Cake may be the only one there, but it is there.
I just made my first Death Cake and took it to South Carolina for my Sister Maude's funeral. Her ashes were carried to the old church cemetery. She had asked to be buried as close to our daddy as possible. So her small white urn was buried about where his heart might have been.
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Joe was born in l946 and he was two-and-a-half when the houses of Old Butler were put on wheels to be rolled away. They still slept in the house and Joe remembers that his daddy opened the basement door to go downstairs. There were no stairs there so he fell and broke his ribs.
But the lake continued to back up and fill, and the new town was opened for business July 4, 1951. Old Butler is kept alive in celebrations and tale telling and New Butler sometimes gathers at the river and remembers the good earth.
The first time that The Death Cake went to a wake the grieving relative home from California took it back and ate it himself. One person who has MS calls Mrs. Grindstaff about three times a year and says he needs his Death Cake. She cooks it up and carries it over.
Neighbors know The Death Cake is coming and they look for it.
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Butler Death Cake
One devilsfood cake mix withOUT INSTANT PUDDING;
add egg and oil as called for in mix;
then add one 16 ounce can of cherry pie filling;
add more or less 1/4 can of water;
mix by hand adding more water if needed;
add 1 teaspoon almond extract flavor.
Bake about 40 minutes at 350 degrees.
Cool and cover with any desired chocolate icing.
It has been used for 10 years in Old Butler -- quick and easy, keeps a long time because of cherries.
We hope your life is filled with loving instead of grief but you might like, the next time you go to the grocery store, to copy and take the recipe with you. Buy enough for two. Like the man from California, the first one you may want for yourself.
Graphic above: Music on the Square, photo courtesy Steve Cook, Jonesborough Art Glass Gallery
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Ancient societies throughout the world conceived that ritual performance of sacred music and dance at auspicious times establishes communication with the higher powers of good and brings about healing on environmental, social and personal levels.
The Mystic Arts of Tibet tour, featuring multiphonic song and traditional dance by monks of Drepung Loseling ("Hermitage of the Radiant Mind") Monastery, performed Sacred Music Sacred Dance for World Healing at Annie Hogan Byrd Auditorium, Tusculum College to an awed and appreciative audience. The American seat of Drepung Loseling was established as Losel Shedrup Ling in Mineral Bluff GA, with principal affiliates in Atlanta GA, Knoxville TN, Nashville TN, Asheville NC and Birmingham AL. Funds raised through donations and purchase of Tibetan crafts support work and worship for over 2500 residents of His Holiness, the Dali Lama's Tibet in Exile, Mundgod, N.K. Karnataka, India.
"From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, that of painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. In Tibetan this art is called dul-tson-kyil-khor, which literally means “mandala of colored powders.” Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks. When finished, to symbolize the impermanence of all that exists, the colored sands are swept up and poured into a nearby river or stream where the waters carry the healing energies throughout the world."
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