THE SWEET, SPICY AROMA of cinnamon, allspice and rum wafted through the apartment, a hint of goodness to come. The fruitcake appeared once a year in our apartment in Compton during the Christmas Eve festivities my Panamanian family celebrated. As a child, I waited all day for my mother to place the cake at the center of the table, carefully positioned like a star on the Christmas tree. Though she had not made it in years, on the first Christmas after she died, I yearned for that glorious fruitcake.
Preparation usually began months, if not years, before Christmas. Rum and Manischewitz Concord wine remained in our kitchen cabinet solely for the purpose of soaking dried fruit in a one-gallon plastic jar. The
