Ah luxury. It’s interesting how the definition changes.

Once upon a time, luxury for me meant a new Hermès or a call to my gal at Barneys in New York to get my hands on the latest and most exclusive Le Labo or Serge Lutens export.

Now luxury is toilet paper with anything resembling structural integrity.

Then vs. Now

Yet even in those heady days, I was still just a Career Girl in the newspaper industry.

What the dead tree biz lacked in job security it made up for in low wages, and my attempt to indulge in champagne tastes on a cava budget was not exactly effortless. Each glittering bottle of rarefied perfume, each instantly recognizable square orange box, represented weeks or months of sacrifices –most small, some large– in other parts of my life.

I call it my Luxury Tithe, a phrase I first heard from my friend Amy, author of the brilliant and sadly dormant Style Spy, as she diligently squirreled away a portion of her pay each week to save for a pair of Miu Miu sandals or a trip to her beloved Paris.

The eminently tithe-worthy Alexander McQueen Seasonal Satchel, click picture for link

I’m happier in Scotland than on the Seine and Miu Miu sandals rarely fit my feet (not that it matters since I refuse to support Miuccia Prada anyway after her fatty-firing opera stunt) but aside from the ideas of paying cash and not living beyond your means as just good sense, I had two reasons to start my own luxury tithe.

First, I knew my dream job –the real one, not the designated thigh oiler for Real Madrid (although if anyone’s hiring…)– has even less money in it than the newspaper industry, and believe me, very few things have less money in it than the newspaper industry.

I knew someday the reasonably well-paid party would end, and when it did I wanted to be able to walk away with an accessories wardrobe to last a lifetime and not a penny of credit card debt, which is exactly what I did.

Second, I wanted to learn the joys of living a discriminating life.

It’s painfully simple, but if something’s not extremely good, I don’t want it. I’d rather go without than have my fill of mediocrity or worse. It’s probably why I’ve lost so much weight in Mexico (well, you know, that and the cholera): Mangoes, fish and veggies are good here; pastry, meat and sweets are not, at least not to a palate that prefers butter to lard and thick ribeyes to thin strips of carne asada.

Television isn’t very good in America (it’s worse in Mexico) so I happily gave it a miss and the money I saved by not paying to have Real Housewives of a Culturally Declining Nation piped into Château Gâteau bought me a Paris-only bell jar of the shiveringly dry yet animalic Bois et Musc  (which smells exactly like my lynx coat after a post-prandial walk in the woods) and fuchsia Dolce and Gabbana heels in suede so buttery I want to spread it on toast.

Let’s turn this into a Big Question.

Right now my Luxury Tithe –pathetic as it may be– is dedicated to funding an exploratory trip to Buenos Aires to see whether the so-called Paris of Latin America is destined to be the next stop on the Miss Plumcake Expatriate World Tour.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know whether you have a Luxury Tithe. If so, what’s the desired result? If not, what’s your preferred method of acquiring what you want?

Happy Monday, gang, how’s every little thing?

Me? I’m fab. Signed the lease on the teensy new Plumcake Cottage in my equally teensy new village where my neighbors are the Pacific ocean, a motionless shriveled man who is approximately 300 years old and looks like Voldemort’s granddad (but, you know, in a nice way, although if he doesn’t move soon I’m going to have to check if he’s dead) and about three dozen dusty old trail horses who seem very interested in what’s going on with their new neighbors and ohbytheway was that a bag of apples they saw being loaded into the kitchen?

Nice work if you can get it.

Back in the states several of my friends still act as if I’ve moved into an uncharted, cannibal-filled area of New Guinea instead of a blissfully bucolic seaside village where, okay, the closest gas station is 20 miles away and if you want eggs for tomorrow’s breakfast you find the tree with the hand-painted wooden sign reading “Huevos Aqui” and follow the shakily pointing arrow to your cholesterol-laden destiny; but it’s also a place where you can walk for six miles on a white sand beach without meeting anyone except an escaped horse and and –at low tide– plump old women peeling mejillones (marine mussels) off craggy semi-submerged rocks.

Still, it’s a long way off from the hipster haven of Austin, Texas or the international moving and shaking of Washington, D.C.. So why the drastic move?

Simply put, I never thought I wouldn’t live in other countries, especially developing ones, and that in a large part has to do with my mother.

Born in Hong Kong, her formative years were spent moving all over Asia.

All her brothers and sisters were born in different countries and as a child I would delight in hearing their stories of cobras and monsoons and peasant revolts…a life totally different than anything I could know from the Benneton-diverse (you can be any color you want as long as you’re rich) confines of privileged suburban D.C..

Love and luck took me to Mexico specifically, but I’ve always been jealous of my mother’s experiences and believed a life lived entirely in your native country is something to be mourned, not cherished.

Although she’s no longer a part of my life and the tell-all fodder far outweighs the Hallmark moments, I thought we could take this week to discuss and yes, even appreciate, our mothers.

Since mother-daughter relationships are so complicated, especially when there’s a weight issue involved –raise your hand if your mother put you on a diet as a child because she couldn’t control her own size so she’d at least try to control yours– we’ll get into the deeper stuff later, but I thought it might be nice to start out on a generous foot.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What’s the most valuable gift your mother gave you, not by being a bad example, but through positive influence or personal inspiration?

(Illustration via AllYou.com where you can find instructions for making them, if you are so inclined)

Yesterday my inimitable colleague Miss Plumcake told us of her great fondness for black jelly beans, and wished us all the delights of the season. Right back at you, Plummy.

But that got me thinking about the seasonal treats for this time of year, both commercial and more homespun, that mean so much to many of us. And that made me curious: what’s the culinary treat you look forward to at this time of year?

Is it decorated hard boiled eggs? Challah? Cadbury Caramel Eggs? Leg of lamb? Something only your family created?

For me it’s buns. Specifically, it’s dove and rabbit-shaped buns my mother used to make every year for Easter. They were tasty, yeasty buns with raisin eyes and shiny crusts that melted in my mouth, and we got them just one morning of the entire year.

I miss those buns.

I also went through a period of several years in which I was something of an Easter egg queen. Each year I would get together with a good friend and we would create glorious egg art using dyes, crayons (it’s basically a form of wax-resist dyeing; you use your crayons on the egg shells, and the bits you leave alone get the color while the areas you crayoned are the color of whatever crayon you used), stickers, and assorted tools of the trade.

The problem was, nobody wanted to crack those puppies open and eat the eggs once we’d made them so pretty, but boiled eggs only last so long if nobody eats them. And as much as I enjoy a good hard boiled egg once in a while… there are only so many I can consume before I become bilious and don’t want to see another egg for months. Still, every couple years or so, I’ll get myself a half dozen eggs and do something to pretty them up after I boil them.

So tell me about your favorite taste treat from the holidays at this time of year! I can’t wait to read all about them.

Happy Monday my precious after-dinner mints, how’s every little thing?

Me, I’m fab. Well okay, not fab per se, but it’s raining outside and while most other suckers are getting their socks wet, I’m here bundled up with my heating pad (central heat has not yet been invented here) tea, blankets and fluffy striped socks that came into my possession in some unknown way and which make me look like my medical profile should feature the words “brain trauma: severe” somewhere therein.

Saturday, Hot Latin Boy and I roadtripped it down south to go to the olive festival and check the potential next Villa Plumcake.

This would’ve been fun except it was not merely raining, it was –in the parlance of my deeply missed Texas– a real frog strangler.

Sadly, none of the houses are destined to be the next Villa Plumcake.

I did find one I positively adored –a fantastic mashup of a lighthouse and a ziggurat perched atop a cliff with 270 degree views of the ocean– but it’s 90 minutes to a store that might actually sell meaningful toilet paper, and so I had to let her go.

The olive festival was cancelled, but HLB insisted on taking me deep into the (surprisingly very good) wine country to visit a Russian museum and restaurant he’d ventured on before.

The Russian museum and restaurant only had three problems: it wasn’t Russian, a museum or a restaurant.

Aside from the name on the wall and a solitary gourd painted to look –if you squinted– like a vaguely Eastern European doll, this place wouldn’t have recognized Russia if Catherine the Great’s pony fell on it.

Being both starved for sustenance and adventure, HLB and I agreed to eat in the *pointed dry cough* restaurant, which was a shack of bare corrugated tin that mostly overlapped, except in places where it didn’t, like, oh I don’t know, the walls and roof.

The floor was, of course, dirt and aside from one rusty Pixar-style desk lamp on the opposite side of the room, benefited from no electricity. We huddled freezing around the cast iron stove –the only heat source– avoiding drips and ate our grim meal (the traditional Muscovite dish of corn smut empanadas) with dampened cheer.

Wow, on second thought, maybe it was more Russian than I originally thought.

(I assure you, it is delicious)

Plus the fat girl at the counter was mean.

I know it’s probably ridiculous, but I expect a degree of solidarity from my corpulent cohort. Sort of the way military veterans treat each other: We were there, man; except there is here. Sister was not having it though. Whatever.

With that adventure in mind, and the scent of almost ready rosemary shortbread making advances on my nostrils, I thought I’d open it up to a Big Question.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What is your preferred rainy day schedule? Do you enjoy the cats and dogs or, like your pal Plummy, do rainy days and Mondays always bring you down?

I have two versions. When solo, nothing makes me happier than to nestle on the couch with plenty of rich Welsh tea (milk and just the teensiest grain or two of sugar) Bach’s works for organ and an improving book, which I’ll read about two pages of before falling asleep. If I’m feeling ambitious I might make scones or shortbread.

With the fella, the black tea turns to lemongrass with ginger and the Bach stays on the shelf in exchange for film noir, ideally of the Sam Spade oeuvre. Then one of us (hint: not me. Ever.) will brave the rain to get takeout. Snuggling, more tea, more Bogie…romantic, no?

When I lived in Texas, I almost never ate traditional Texan food. Now that I’m in Mexico where I have lengthy and ultimately fruitless (see what I did there) discussions on what is and is not a green tomato –No, that’s a tomatillo. Okay, see what you just handed me? That is ALSO a tomatillo– I find myself cooking soul food and Texas cuisine on a regular, bordering obsessive, basis.

Part of it is the joy of introducing people to your favorite foods. Hot Latin Boy has recently fallen for shrimp and grits, biscuits and gravy and gin and tonics, all in a big way and I couldn’t be more proud.

The other part is the comfort of the familiar.

Living in Texas I would never bother to make my own barbecue unless I wanted some Tennessee-style pulled pork because there’s no point in smoking your own brisket when half of God’s Own BBQ Joints are within a 40 minute drive.

(These are the four most famous pit stops in Lockhart, Texas; ground zero for great Texas bbq. I am and always shall be a Smitty’s girl)

In the spirit of friendship and smoked meat, I am throwing a Texas Independence Day party for a dozen or so of my Mexican friends on Saturday and the menu will feature a proper Texas brisket smoked for 12 hours, potato salad, cowboy beans, deviled eggs, homemade smushy white bread, pickled onions and, incongruously, Bananas Foster.

Bananas Foster? Isn’t that a New Orleans thing?

Yes. Yes it is.

Originally it was going to be the much more traditional banana puddings, complete with low rent Nilla wafers and luscious pillows of boozy whipped cream (ideally it would be my blue ribbon-winning brownie pecan pie, but I can’t find pecans here for love nor money), but I made the mistake of introducing the locals to the flambeed delight earlier this week. The response was so orgiastically enthusiastic, I worried for the sanctity of my tablecloth. Now I’m pretty sure if I ended the party Foster-less I’d quickly find myself in a new, short-lived career as a great white canape for great white sharks.

So what about you? If you were in a foreign land and asked to serve the food of your people, what would your menu be?

Why, dear children, is this day different from all other days?

Because 78 glorious years ago today, the great and good people of this great nation ratified the lovely, lovely 21st Amendment which repealed the terrible, awful, no-good, very bad 18th Amendment, thus putting an end to Prohibition.

There’s a funny familial story about Prohibition that’s been floating around the Plumcake Family Mythology for nearly 80 years.

Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Yonkers, New York a young Salvation Army officer by the name of Miss Plumcake’s Nana discovered her fun-loving and all-around less stick-in-the-mud younger sister had snuck off to some speakeasy in the city and was dancing the night away. My Nana, who could out-damp even the soggiest of bed coverings, was outraged and her anger was not lessened when she discovered her one good dress –her Confirmation gown– was missing.

Grim but not stupid, Nana did the math, deduced her wicked sister and her heavenly dress were sharing the same airspace.

Nana marched right down to the speakeasy and proceeded to RIP the dress right off of her shameless sister, thus fulfilling her lifelong legacy of ruining everyone’s good time –well, except for the men at the speakeasy I suppose– and adding another chapter to the legend of Miss Plumcake’s family.

The moral of the story is this: Don’t anger a Plumcake woman. Also, if the last words you say to your devoted teenage great-granddaughter are “Have you always been that fat?”, you thereby give up your rights NOT to be talked about publicly and at great length.

Remember, an elephant never forgets.

In honor of the end of Prohibition, and the fact I’m going to have to whittle down my Scotch collection to 3 liters so I can take it across the Mexican border, I thought I’d ask a little booze-themed Big Question.

Today Miss Plumcake wants to know:

What one alcoholic beverage would you be unwilling to go the rest of your life without?

After much thoughtful deliberation, I’ve decided upon the humble yet sublime Talisker 18 year-old single malt Scotch. Talisker is the only Scotch made on the Isle of Skye and has in its golden soul the best of both the smokey peat of the Islay malts and the honeyed heather of a Speyside.

It’s not the most expensive or rarest Scotch I own, a bottle of Talisker 18 will set you back less than a hundred dollars, and there are other Scotches I prefer as specimens of one breed or another, but for pure overarching perfection, the Talisker is hard to beat, and, incidentally, is ridiculous (in the good way) on a hot buttered waffle.

Mr. Twistie and I do enjoy daydreaming. Just yesterday we were on the road on a mission that isn’t particularly important to explain and he asked me a question: if we suddenly had stupid amounts of money so that we would never have to worry about bills again… what is the first thing I would get for me?

We always assume that the absolute first thing we would do after paying off all our debts is get everyone we love paid off, too. No more mortgages, no more car or student loans, no more overdue medical bills, stuff like that. But this time he asked what I would do first for me once all that is taken care of and we still have more money that we can possibly spend in several lifetimes.

I even surprised myself with my answer: I said I would find and hire a fantastic cobbler to make me a real wardrobe of great shoes.

I’m sure Mr. Twistie thought I was going to say I wanted one of every Le Creuset pot and pan ever made… and I assured him that was on my castle in the air list. Just I want some really fabulous shoes that correctly fit my wide, high-arched, buniony little paws and my extremely… unique personal style first. And I want them without having to engage in fifteen rounds of mail order and returns.

All my life, footwear has been a much bigger battle than it ought. Now, with fewer and fewer retailers carrying even a single, ugly pair of wide width shoes in the store, it’s become absolute torture. At this point, a cobbler is pretty much the only way out I see and I want one. So there!

How about you? If you suddenly lucked into Trumpesque wads of cash and have taken care of all the necessities (paying off debts, taking care of medical issues, setting up a college fund for the kids, etc.), what would be the first just for fun thing you do for yourself?

Oh, Mr. Twistie’s answer? Head straight for Saville Row and have a Beatles suit custom made for him.

All I can say to that is yeah, yeah, yeah!