behold! the power of cake

working in catering is a bitch.

it's the exposure. it's the opportunities to have a weak moment and a whole lotta crap nearby. I worked a gig last night that featured Fried Coconut Prawns (beer battered, on a skewer, like a little prawny lollipop), Shiitake Potstickers (the healthiest thing), and this crostini I came to call The Devil's Jeweled Crown: baguette topped with a smear of remoulade (as per industry standards-- fat barrier), a seared, butterflied scallop, a square of bacon, then a chunk of fontina cheese. These things were then tossed in the oven to get melty and sent on out to the public. We all had a sample of two (or three). It was all wrong and it was delicious, and I'm convinced that the combination of scallops and bacon has some deep seated origin other than the parallel placement of vowels. Like maybe there's some evolutionary link, and when you have the two together it's like pork finding its ocean-mama. Or maybe it's the salt. Oh, let the decadence continue: Caesar Salad, Halibut with Remoulade, Fabulous grilled summer vegetables (I must admit that these were my best looking platters of the season), Ravioli (butternut or spinach) in Sage Cream Sauce, and don't forget the Beef Tenderloin in Red Wine Sauce.

It was a fairly typically indulgent buffet menu, and I'll admit to getting hungry and trying some veggies and a little beef, too. But the essence of evil was the dessert: Pineapple Upside Down cake. It even looked evil. And I was hungry. And so I had a piece (it was about 9pm). And after I ate said evil (yet tasty-- it had rum in it for god's sake) cake, I realized there was no way I could call up my sweetie and ask for a ride home (I'd biked in).

And so I set out into a very surreal night (the annual bumbershoot festival was happening just blocks from the catering job) first filled with the sounds of Kanye West and all these people talking loud on the street, and then bad drivers and lots of taxis, and as I got further from Seattle Center, it just turned into desolate streets, the usual landmarks hidden in the night, my bikelight illuminating the street some 20 feet ahead of me.

I rode fast. I rode hard. I was huffing and puffing but I felt strong, and all the while I felt the power of cake. Cake power is like a hot poker in the ass-- it's like corn-syrup for blood-- it's like snorting lines of confectioner's sugar. Last night, cake power was good shit, a direct hit.

It made me wonder if I had tapped straight into that mighty cake qi, those rings of pineapple symbols of golden wheels, those pecans the nuts of my nuttiness.


Cake. How can something so wrong feel so right?