Cakethulu

Some people have complained that the cover of Veganomicon is not metal enough.

And now that I’ve seen Franny’s 23rd birthday cake, I have to agree.

Advertisement

Flaming Blackout Cake

Deidre Jean always makes me feel really lazy. Look at all the work she put into making this flaming groom’s cake, complete with fire engine to put out the vegan fire.

She’s actually got blueprints! Start here to see how it all came together.

What’s the Deal With the Icies Cupcake Wrappers?

Coconut Lime Cupcakes image stolen from MechanicallySeparatedOk ra.

That was my Seinfeld impression (what’s the deal with…), thank you very much.

I’m saying though – they look so pretty and modern but I would think that it would be a pain to eat a cupcake out of one. From my many years of field research in icies eating, it seems that you need to rip the rim apart to get to the cupcake. Don’t you lose a little bit of the grace that standard cupcake liners afford? I thought that peeling back the wrapper is part of the cupcake ritual that we hold dear. Am I just a luddite? Enlighten me.

Chief Cupcakes Inspector

I have lived in NY all my life and it is seemingly impossible yet indeed the reality that I had no idea what the Javits Center really was or where it was or what I was in for. It spans three city blocks and sits right on the West Side Highway, which I’ve surely walked dozens of times, so how could I miss it? I think that sometimes when you hear certain things so often (and “Javits Center” is certainly a phrase that pops up on NPR and infomercials several times a day) you just assume that you know what they are. Same thing with “school vouchers”, or “post structuralism.” I’m clueless, but if there was a lively dinner conversation about them I would just let context be my guide and assume I was an expert.

The Javits Center is the kind of building that strikes me as a wonderful structure to inhabit after the apocalypse. Steel beams, glass ceiling, glass everything actually. Terry, a convention pro, led the way as we roamed its emboothened (I just made that word up! It means “a large space that has booths”) aisles collecting books and comics, mango martinis and aprons. And I will never be for wont of a tote bag again. Thank god for swag.

Anyway, long story short, we signed books, gave out cupcakes and shmoozed. And if anyone ever told me that Clinton’s Chief Weapons Inspector would be helping me decorate cupcakes someday I probably would have thought, “Yes, of course he will.”

Scott Ritter finds cupcakes of mass destruction

Terry and I being foot soldiers

What’s that lurking in the background?

A Man and His Cupcakes

I love hoveringdog’s cupcakes. What’s more, I love that he is a guy and decorates them so beautifully. And it makes me wish that I didn’t think things like, “Oh wow! A guy who bakes cupcakes!” Someday “guy who bakes cupcakes” will be redundant.

PS Ladies, he is available.

Pistachio Rosewater 

German Chocolate

Green Tea

Fruit Pleather Decorating

Why didn’t I think of that? I guess sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. Cut out little shapes from fruit leather make adorable cupcake toppers!

From ridiculously cute blushinmuffin. 

On Earthday Cupcakes, Grandmas and Napkins

Earthday cupcakes from Madness Rivera in the Vegan Cupcake Pool

On Earth Day 1990 I awoke to my best friend telling me that my grandmother had just died. The day before my cat had died and my boyfriend had cheated on me with a green haired girl who was always at every punk show.

But Earth Day that year was a big deal. It was the 20th anniversary of the holiday, and although the day wasn’t really on the radar in the 20 years since 1970, the 80s were over and I suppose people were thinking that it was as good a time as any to stop snorting cocaine and go green again. So I went to Central Park with my anarchist youth collective as I had planned, there was no point sitting around in Brooklyn crying when I could be in the park with my friends. Crying.

One of our first orders of business once on the Upper East Side was to go cardboard box surfing. That is, you flatten out a cardboard box on the sidewalk, run towards it as fast as you can, jump on it and see how far you can slide. Depending on the sidewalk and the slipperiness of the box it was usually only a few feet, maybe 10 if you were really little and really lucky.

A woman with an expensive baby stroller and big sunglasses shouted at us, “You are doing this on Earth Day?” Of course, these boxes were destined for the garbage dump, any amount of surfing on them wasn’t going to make the environmental situation any worse. In fact, kudos to us for finding fun with garbage instead of sitting home, playing video games and using electricity.

Once in the park, a comfortable distance from where the B-52s were playing, we lay in the grass and did whatever teenagers do on the grass. I rolled over onto my back, away from my friends and looked up to the sky through my purple tinted sunglasses (can anyone but a teenager appreciate the world through colored lenses?). I thought about my grandma and my cat. Since that time, my first instinct whenever a loved one dies is to look up at the sky and wonder “Where the fuck did you go?”

The last time I had spoken to my grandma she had asked me to bring her mirror and make-up to the hospital. I thought of how she wasn’t just able to say that she wanted to see me one last time. I felt guilty because I never did bring her make-up and mirror and how I should have known that what she really meant was that she loved me, even if I did paint my face white and dye my hair purple. I thought about how I don’t want to grow old that way – afraid to tell people I love them.

Garbage was accumulating all around us, and it wasn’t ours. Hoards of people were making their way through the park, dropping McDonald’s wrappers and Budweiser empties and whatever else they didn’t want to deal with. I picked up a McDonald’s Earthday napkin and read the missive on it. It talked about how McDonald’s was committed to the environment and how the napkin was whatever percentage recycled material.

Did you ever make a promise to yourself that you will never forget? I can remember a few. For some reason when I was walking up my elementary school stairs in second grade I stopped, looked at the building and thought, “Never forget this day.” And I haven’t, it was March 9th. I have no idea why I wanted to remember it, other than that I was catching on to the fleetingness of life. But on Earth Day, April 22nd 1990, in the grass in Central Park, I thought it again and this time I do remember what I was thinking.

Don’t believe the lies that napkins tell you, don’t grow old and afraid of love, don’t ever stop looking up at the sky and wondering.

I had some sense at the time how hard these things would be, but 17 years later- exactly 2 times the age I was then- I’m trying to get back on track. I don’t want to disappoint that 17 year old because I feel like she’s the wisest person I know. Also, she might kick my ass if I don’t follow through.

Sushi Cupcake

Deidre Jean posted this about a week ago and ever since I’ve been thinking “I have to post it on the blog, I have to post it on the blog.” And whenever I nag myself with something I refuse to do it. But now that I’ve stopped nagging myself I can freely post it on the blog.

“This ‘japanese style’ cupcake is the basic yellow cake from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World with the “butter cream” frosting, both flavored with coconut extract. The ‘rice’ is coconut, the ‘fish’ are swedish, the ‘wasabi’ is marzipan, and don’t eat the plastic grass.”