Every Valentine’s Day since I was about three and started playing the piano, my mom gave me some kind of piano as a present: not a real piano, but a miniature facsimile.
Most of the piano presents were tiny charms for juvenile charm bracelets, or miniature music boxes shaped like pianos. I think this was her way of thanking me for playing an instrument she absolutely adored, but had no aptitude for whatsoever.
Not to be left out of the piano collection, my mom bought two of everything, one for me, one for herself. While I mostly kept my piano possessions in my jewelry box or stored away in my dresser, my mom cheerfully indulged in a public display of piano. Her charm bracelets clanked with grand pianos and upright pianos. Pianos dangled from her necklaces and hung from her earrings. Rhinestone pianos grinned from her coat lapels. Liberace may have had his full size diamond studded pianos, but I had my mom as a walking proclamation of piano love.
A baby grand
My first real piano, which replaced my parents’ rickety old upright whose keys rattled like false teeth, was a small white baby grand with gold stripes on it that my dad bought from a local flea market.
My dad was a decent amateur pianist who liked to improvise jazz. I think he was looking for any excuse to buy a cheap full size piano. My mom was so elated by this chipped white and gold kidney-shaped item with the faded 88 keys, which took up most of her already crowded living room, that she immediately needle pointed a cushion for the piano bench.
She made little socks for its three metal piano feet and three pedals. She embroidered a shawl for it and tenderly covered it up at night.
I named the piano “Felix,” after Felix Mendelssohn and Felix the Cat. To my sensitive child’s ears, Felix was a rather battered up old instrument slathered with a garish coat of paint to hide its internal deficiencies which were mainly worn hammers, rusty strings, and pegs that couldn’t hold a tuning as long as I could hold my breath. Nevertheless, my parents enjoyed it on its own merits. I had to make do with Felix until something better came along some years later.
The piano parties
When I was five, Felix and I started taking formal piano lessons. My mom frequently helped out the piano teacher by hosting little parties where the students could play for each other and their parents. Afterwards, we would have food, juice, and compare notes about who was the most nervous before playing the piano in public.
On Valentine’s Day when I was in second grade, my mom decided to outdo herself with refreshments for a “piano party.” That year, the dessert was going to be a gigantic cake in the shape of a piano, with huge black and white keys made out of chocolate. There were 30 piano keys, each key the size of a large loaf pan, and a King Kong-sized keyboard that completely covered the dining room table.
This was some undertaking. It was the only time my mom and I shopped together for sweets almost exclusively. We bought semisweet chocolate, cake pans, baker’s unsweetened chocolate, cookie sheets, dark chocolate, parchment paper, white chocolate, vegetable oil, tiny chocolate chips, eggs, semi sweet chocolate chunks, sugar, vanilla, flour, heavy cream, and an après chocolate binge diet book for my mom.
We sifted, poured, mixed, blended, beat, melted, drizzled, cut, carved, brushed, glazed, and tasted our way through hours of chocolaty preparation, or about the time it takes me to play through the first ten Beethoven piano sonatas without an intermission.
The chocolate piano cake was beyond anything Willie Wonka ever dreamed of. In my memory it belongs next to the chocolate statue of Elton John in Madame Tussaud’s chocolate museum.
The cake stole the attention from the performances at the piano party. Excitement over digging into the cake was palpable. Performance jitters were forgotten as attention focused on the cake. That day I played an excerpt from an early Mozart piano sonata. Now I can’t play this particular piece without tasting chocolate instantly.
At this noisy wedding of food and music, my mom stood back and calmly watched as the audience devoured the pièce de piano. I was not so calm. I fought with my second grade crush, Roger Evans, over middle C. The quest for chocolate took precedence over romance. My mom had to take away the middle C and put it in the freezer. I settled for part of 2 D’s and an F sharp, and begrudgingly let the guests eat the rest.
The replica
This year, I thought it would be a good idea to try and replicate that cake for my friends and students for Valentine’s Day. I made a few miniature test samples, but they tasted nothing like my mom’s delicious Herculean effort.
I laid out a blueprint of the full size piano cake on my living room floor to inspire me. It is made of drafting paper and construction paper and is so large that my students wanted to know if it was going to be a rug of some sort to use as a teaching device.
Frankly, I would rather use a huge chocolate piano as a teaching aid, but I rationalized it wouldn’t have the longevity of a rug.
Finally, I abandoned the monster chocolate piano idea and headed straight for the internet, where I found a few specialty companies that manufacture miniature anatomically correct chocolate pianos that promise to melt in your mouth. For now, they will just have to do.
Hoboken resident Pamela Ross is a pianist and actress.