PipesDreams

Alternate Life, Part 3: What I would be eating
This is perhaps a stretch for my “alternate life”, since it would have to be oh-so-very alternative that I would in fact be living in someone else’s body. A body with a highly overactive thyroid gland and/or a metabolism that would sneeze at less than 4,000 calories per day. Still, I cling to the irrational idea that were I not in such a sedentary office job, I could eat whatever I liked with minimal physical consequences. Stop laughing. It might be true.

You see, along with my peculiar infatuation with cheerleaders, pinatas, mortgages, shoulder blades, and sheep-milk cheese, I am also head over heels for cupcakes. They’re so petite and decadent and delightfully youthful. How could you not like a cake that fits in your hand?

Thus, this “alternate life” entry is in two parts: one, exercising my dark passion for baking and consuming tiny cakelets day and night if only it didn’t affect my waistline; and two, a whimsical exploration of how else I’d like to incorporate empty calories into my day.

Part the First: All cupcakes, all the time

1) CUPCAKES IN TORONTO
While walking around Yonge & Eglinton with , I learned that Toronto is now the proud home of an exclusive Cupcake Shoppe. They only sell cupcakes. *swoon* I want to call and ask if they have job openings. I like to bake! I can work a cash register! Hiiiiire meeeee!

2) CUPCAKE WORLD TOUR
I would eat Cream Puffs In Venice, order from Frufru in Britain, take a master cupcake-making workshop with pastry chef and ‘Kuiadore’ blogger Joycelyn Shu at Shermay in Singapore, (I would be her disciple already if only she lived on my continent), visit the bakery to the stars Leda’s Bake Shop in California, and go down under to try LeCupCake in Australia.

Next time I visit and in New York City, I’ll have to skip the MoMA and Guggenheim to accomodate my busy schedule of hitting up bakeries all over Manhattan for cupcake lovin’, including: Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Baked NYC, Billy’s Bakery, Buttercup Bake Shop, Cupcake Cafe, Little Cupcake Bakeshop, Mary’s Off Jane, Polka Dots Cake Studio, Two Little Red Hens, and of course the infamous Magnolia Bakery.

3) DAMN RIGHT, THEY’RE BETTER THAN YOURS
Variety is the spice of life. Why settle for vanilla when you could try a million other flavours? Here are ideas and recipies that inspire me to make my own fresh-baked goods tasting of Green Tea, Lavender and Honey, Disco Coconut, Goji berry chocolate, Chocolate espresso, Mojito, Cream Cheese Filled and for something less sweet and more savory, Almond-Ricotta.

I check out new ideas regularly at CupcakeBlog.com and 52Cupcakes at Blogspot.

4) [I saved the best for last.] CUPCAKES + NINJAS = Complete Awesomeness.

Part the Second: Homer’s Land of Chocolate, Now With More Pastry!

If we were to extend my love of candied delights even further, there is a misty world just beyond the reach of my imagination where everything is edible. Way beyond gumdrop buttons, I dive straight into Hansel & Gretel territory. Some beautiful designers have worked hard to make my mental world closer to reality. Observe.

loves lamp. Me, I love chandeliers made of gummi bears. I would also like to carry a purse made out of Tahitian vanilla cake and pink fondant icing. And play chess with a set made of vanilla and chocolate cookies (someone NEEDS to get me these cookie cutters for my birthday!).

Bollocks. Alastair contacted me last night to inform me that our Friday shindig, the U of T Saints & Sinners Club 1940s-themed Comic Book Villains Ball, has been canceled due to lack of interest! Fucking tragic. As always, I have tried to find the silver lining in this situation: given the recent popularity of comic book films, I was beginning to doubt my authenticity as a self-perceived lover of “niche” culture. I guess this puts me firmly back in the land of obscure and unappreciated passions. At least I had not yet wasted money on renting a costume at Malabar, so I can channel those funds into acquiring totally frivolous gaming systems. Or, I guess, pay off my credit card.

In other news, I’ve succumbed to the evil influence of and am reading Nick Hornby’s two novellas about his reading habits, ‘The Polysyllabic Spree’ and ‘Housekeeping vs. the Dirt’. The excerpt from Anton Chekhov’s collected letters at the end of the first book had me laughing under the covers last night at 1am. Damn, these are a good read. Relaxed, self-deprecating, insightful, funny and conspiratorial in a “we’re all readers here” nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way.

Next up on the block is Michael Chabon with ‘The Final Solution’, which should click on just so she can see the cover art. Given my impending 5 hour flight to Vancouver and then the 13 hour flight to Hong Kong, this is shaping up to be a seven-book month.

I ran like a demon last night. I actually thought I was going to sprout horns and a tail, I was going that fast: achieved peak speed of 7.5 (translates to about 4.5min/km) on the treadmill for 4 minutes, did 5km total.

Alternate Life, Part 2: What I would be wearing
I hate office gear. I hate slacks. I dislike button-down shirts. I’m not into blazers. My dream outfit? Comfortable, flared-bottom jeans, thigh-high striped socks, a pair of red pumas, a simple wrought-iron vintage necklace and an embroidered graphic t-shirt, all topped off with a sexy little apron. , you mocked me for my apron collection, but I TOLD you aprons were cutting-edge fashion! And now I’ve been proven right; thank you, Anthropologie.