Cake Weather

I only got my Nana’s recipe right once, but that didn’t stop me from trying

Art by Maya Erdelyi

The declaration that my grandmother’s coconut cake is “haunted” is the kind of statement that requires immediate expansion before any other words can be got in edgewise. Our corner of Appalachia is rich in superstition, but even among friends it’s not the kind of thing you can just lob into conversation and expect…