I just finished Crazy in Alabama by Mark Childress, while eating a massive slice of Kiev cake. A very good book, and good cake. I had never heard of this author before, but several customers recommended him. This book is for everyone who should have grown up in the Sixties, but whose parents did not oblige. Funeral homes, race relations, childhood, crazy Aunt Lucille and the Beverly Hillbillies. I will never look at Tupperware again in the same way. Good thing it was not
Rubbermaid.

He has also written:
    * A World Made of Fire (Knopf, 1984)
    * V For Victor (Knopf, 1988)
    * Tender (Harmony, 1990)
    * Gone for Good (Knopf, 1998)
    * One Mississippi (July 2006, Little, Brown).

Kiev cakes are HUGE. The party upstairs of 10+ people who came over just for the cake could
probably not have finished it. I remember seeing these cakes, and similar ones being sold by
babuskas by the train tracks when the Tisza Express train to Kiev or Moscow stopped in Zsmerinka for 20 minutes. Until now, I have never tasted one. Wikipedia says: "Kiev Cake, or Kyiv Cake (Ukrainian: торт "Київський", Russian: торт "Киевский") is a brand  of dessert  cake, made in Kiev, Ukraine  since the 1950s by the Karl Marx Confectionery Factory  (now subsidiary of the Roshen corporation). The cake has become one of the symbols of Kiev city, particularly by its brand name and package (depicting the informal coat of arms of Kiev). The cake has three layers of meringue with hazelnuts and a buttercream-like filling." I would call it the Kitchen Sink Cake. Every bite I took, I tasted something different, as if they emptied all the leftovers and the kitchen sink into it. And for this, it was enjoyable, because there was always a surprise in the next bite. It was all 1960's, and yummy.