The Irresistible Lure of Tea Cakes

Ocean travel is a wonderful experience. When I was 11 years old, my family took a month-long cruise from New York to several Mediterranean ports. Our out-going ship was the Italian liner, the Vulcania. Launched in 1926, it was on its final voyage. What a lovely ship! Watching the movie Titanic decades later, I was transported back to that elegant old ship with the great staircase made to provide beautifully-dressed ladies with a memorable entrance. We returned on the Cristoforo Colombo, a very modern vessel, a sister-ship of the ill-fated Andrea Doria.

I was the eldest of four children, and I hate to admit, we were terrors on the high seas. We loved the library-writing room, with its inkwells and pens. We made lots of artistic inkblots with folded letter paper and blobs of ink. We'd sneak into the dining room before afternoon tea and steal all the meringues from the cake trays. Hey, this wasn't a Disney cruise - we had to make our own fun!