Monday, December 19, 2005

What Googling Fruitcake Stories Will Get You


I'm one of the few people in the world who actually likes a good fruitcake. No comments from the peanut gallery, please. I assure you I am sane, not nutty as... well... you know...

I remember a short story I had to read in grade school. It was written by Truman Capote, and it's about a boy making fruitcake with a slightly batty relative. I Googled the story, and I found it here. It's called A Christmas Memory.

The story was based on a young Truman's memories of a distant cousin named Sook Faulk. As I checked the Google results for more information, I discovered that Marie Rudisill, The Fruitcake Lady who makes appearances on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, is Truman Capote's aunt. She is the author of a cookbook called, aptly, Fruitcake. The book is subtitled Memories of Truman Capote and Sook. She has some other book titles to her credit, as well.

I had no idea that the sharp-tongued Fruitcake Lady was Truman Capote's aunt! Here's the Answers.com/Wikipedia summary about Marie Rudisill, and here's The Tonight Show's bio about her. You can watch some of The Tonight Show's Ask the Fruitcake Lady segments by clicking on the links found on this page.

So much for Googling fruitcake stories. Might be time to Google fruitcakes: there are a couple of bakeries reputed to make some fine ones. It's probably too late to get one in time for Christmas, but maybe I can score one in time for New Year's Eve...

Off to Google some more!

4 comments:

Virginia Gal said...

Isn't it always great when you google (or in my case Yahoo search) something and find all these interesting facts that you had no idea about...we are modern day Indiana Jones :)

Merci said...

VG-
I never thought of it that way before! You're so right. It's our way of exploring the world and digging for treasure.

Pax Romano said...

Thanks for the link, I've never read that sad, sweet tale before...haunting.

Merci said...

Pax,
It has stuck with me all through the years.

The tale, I mean, not the fruitcake...