Spice cake for Columbus Day

October 9, 1987

Nutmeg from the Moluccas, cinnamon, equally aromatic, from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and cloves come from the far isle with the singing name of Zanzibar - we haven't forgotten it was you he schemed to find another route for, you he dreamed must lie beyond the sunset, you he tried to reach through seas uncharted. Now take pride, spicing the room, in this: that, though he failed, you were the reason why Columbus sailed southwesterly to Salvador and found a vast new world, and that the world was round.