Happy UnBirthday to You!
News on Cake and Pie: socializing, edible flower excess and perfection
A very merry unbirthday to you on this May 1, May Day, day of maypoles and protest. Over the past fews days I deliberately inundated myself with cake and pie social media. We’re a pie family by label, but a good celebratory cake is always appreciated. Today I protest the excessive use of decorations and size in cake-making and extoll the virtues of pie.
Part 1: Cake
I had a good laugh while watching a clip from Alexia Delarosa making a cake with edible decorations. She’s trad wife satire, but honestly the number of woody or unpalatable things used to decorate food now is out of control. Just because flowers are “edible” (i.e. it won’t poison you if you have some nibbles) doesn’t mean you should liberally sprinkle them on frosting. I have so many cookbooks with the same concept; add an entire clementine branch to the top of a cake! Or an entire hand-sized dahlia bloom! Alexia’s playful imaginary pulling of a dragonfruit from her backyard vine is over-the-top but also a reflection of how ridiculous things are in the world of food decor.
In San Francisco events are often word of mouth and frequently found out about after-the-fact, so the recent “CakeChella” event was beautifully photographed and promoted by the local news before I even knew it existed. While on the one hand my immediate reaction was extreme FOMO, I realized it was the creativity and not the extreme amount of cake was what I felt sad missing. Numerous tables were filled with exotic cakes of wild imagination, and everyone who participated got to sample the cakes in their own cake box of dreamy assortment.
I found this clip from Sebastian Maniscalco that made me laugh - it’s about how weird we’ve all gotten about answering the doorbell. The bit that really got me was about how our moms/grandmas used to always have Entenmann’s on hand. “Just in case”. There was a sense of joy I saw in my parents if relatives just stopped by on a beautiful day to say hello. In New Jersey when I was growing up there was even an Entenmann’s outlet store in case you wanted to stock up in your freezer for all those unexpected guests. Hell, sometimes even just hearing the text messaging bell gives me hives if I’ve had a long day and just want to disconnect. But I used to have friends that would just stop by and ring the doorbell to go out and ride bikes. I think that probably stopped after college.
Last week I put up a notice that our little blue house was listed and I got a few comments from friends and family sharing their feelings. One of the comments I got was from one of the former owners of the house that I befriended and had over almost 10 years after we bought the house from her family! We had peach cake and played 7 Wonders with the kids. That peach cake was amazing. I should probably share that recipe soon.
Part 2: Pie
I was at a baseball auction a couple months ago. There was a wine toss. Sporting equipment. A rental house or two. The dessert dash. In case you aren’t familiar with it, in a dessert dash you everyone at the table writes down amounts to pay for a dessert, it’s added up, and then the tables are either randomly picked or the tables are called in the order of who big the most on desserts from greatest to least. Out table’s “dasher” dashed for some Costco cookies. Why the cookies? The reasoning was that they were the easiest to share when our table went home for the night. BUT! there were leftover desserts. There was an apple pie. I need to tell you that I was the happiest woman in the room when I was the only bid on that apple pie and won it for $20. I took it home for both dessert and breakfast. Homemade and perfect, damn I love a good pie.
But in the world of social media, a humble-looking item doesn’t cut it. There are two resourceful people that have turned pie making into art. I know there are others. But here’s a short list of GORGEOUS pies.
Pie lady books - stunningly detailed pies inspired by book covers
Loko Kitchen - geometric colorful and oftentimes unique pie flavors
Jo Harrington - Beautiful pies, like a fruity edible William Morris print
For the record, I am currently mulling over how to bring cake closer to pie-level in my heart.
So that begs the question that has always haunted me…
What do all the food people (bloggers, stylists, recipe developers, etc) do with the leftovers when they make all these beautiful, very large cakes and desserts?
Are you team cake or pie?
Team Pie here. Nice piece today, Lorraine.