Chocolate cake is for rich people. May I interest you in a kale cake?
A bit before Thanksgiving last year my mom decided to become vegan. Mostly for health reasons, though she has discovered in her journey that there are all sorts of compassionate stewardship reasons that veganism fits with her Christian values. I bring this up because her birthday is coming up and she has requested that my grandmother make her a kale and beetroot cake. To me this sounds like the least cakelike cake that has ever been caked in cake thought. (hold this thought)
I volunteer at a homeless ticket clinic in Venice once a month. Homeless people basically get ticketed for being unsightly on the Venice landscape and get tickets for doing what nonhomeless people would never get cited for in a million years, like sharing food or erecting an awning that can effectively shield them from the sun, or sitting down for too long. So our clinic provides attorneys to help defend them in front of judges. If you think it's weird that communities fine homeless people, who OBVIOUSLY CANNOT PAY ANYTHING, for harmless infractions, it is in fact a growing trend to try and annoy homeless people into moving into other communities. (hold this thought)
I am obsessed with the Great British Baking show (in Britain it is called the Great British Bakeoff) and have been completely hypnotized by it despite the fact that I don't really cook anything. I mainly subsist on a cold food diet. cereal, salads with cheese and lunchmeat, luna bars, etc. (hold this thought)
A bunch of my law school classmates have recently graduated or moved out of their campus housing. And because I am a late sort of person, I tend to visit them when there is a frantic rush to purge their kitchens. This has yielded me many delightful pantry items, but this year the items have spilled over such that I cannot actually fit them all in my cupboards. And then, fatefully, like the Ring of Power calling out to Smeagol, Jason gave me a bag full of sugar and cocoa powder and Kind bars. I got home to find that the cocoa had unleashed itself on all the other bag inhabitants. And then my public-interest minded cheapness could no longer be suppressed and was like "Dear God, we must save the cocoa powder!" Which led me to bake a chocolate cake, the first item I have ever baked for no particular occasion. Damn you, Mary Berry, you British national treasure!
Anyway, it was actually DELICIOUS. so so good. I mean, I know how opening the oven too soon can make the cake fall...it was a harrowing 40 minutes of oven wizardry that resulted in an awesomely moist, rich cake. (secret ingredient was a hot cup of coffee added to the batter...I brewed it, but I couldve just opened a vein and let my coffee-rich blood do the job).
So I am feeling like...TRIUMPHANT. I have saved the cocoa. I have wasted not. I have used the abundant ingredients of my pantry. I haveth bakethed. I cut the top off for me and my roommate--(still poor students, yo), frosted the sucker, and decided, wouldn't it be so fun if I took this delicious, made from scratch, cake to my homeless clinic clients? I mean, how precious am I? I am like...the BEST person ever. Will they not love and so appreciate this cake that I have made which might cost many dollars per slice at a Susie Cakes?
And so I presented my Gateau de Triomphe to the office. A few attorneys took slices and gave me the praise I, let's be real, EXPECTED because it was so yummy. SO I start offering it to clients who politely decline because they have: Diabetes. Gout. celiac disease, seizures, high cholesterol, etc etc.
Yeah, I totally forgot that my clients only have ER access to healthcare. And they don't actually want to go to there.
This leads me to the moral of this story: Donate a vegetable and fruit plate to your homeless clients or learn how to make a damn gluten-free kale cake. For the love of God, only rich people have the requisite gym memberships and cadillac healthcare to afford them the luxury of a piece of a conventional chocolate cake.
P.s. Please Please Please consider donating to get my innocent immigration client out of detention!
I volunteer at a homeless ticket clinic in Venice once a month. Homeless people basically get ticketed for being unsightly on the Venice landscape and get tickets for doing what nonhomeless people would never get cited for in a million years, like sharing food or erecting an awning that can effectively shield them from the sun, or sitting down for too long. So our clinic provides attorneys to help defend them in front of judges. If you think it's weird that communities fine homeless people, who OBVIOUSLY CANNOT PAY ANYTHING, for harmless infractions, it is in fact a growing trend to try and annoy homeless people into moving into other communities. (hold this thought)
I am obsessed with the Great British Baking show (in Britain it is called the Great British Bakeoff) and have been completely hypnotized by it despite the fact that I don't really cook anything. I mainly subsist on a cold food diet. cereal, salads with cheese and lunchmeat, luna bars, etc. (hold this thought)
A bunch of my law school classmates have recently graduated or moved out of their campus housing. And because I am a late sort of person, I tend to visit them when there is a frantic rush to purge their kitchens. This has yielded me many delightful pantry items, but this year the items have spilled over such that I cannot actually fit them all in my cupboards. And then, fatefully, like the Ring of Power calling out to Smeagol, Jason gave me a bag full of sugar and cocoa powder and Kind bars. I got home to find that the cocoa had unleashed itself on all the other bag inhabitants. And then my public-interest minded cheapness could no longer be suppressed and was like "Dear God, we must save the cocoa powder!" Which led me to bake a chocolate cake, the first item I have ever baked for no particular occasion. Damn you, Mary Berry, you British national treasure!
Anyway, it was actually DELICIOUS. so so good. I mean, I know how opening the oven too soon can make the cake fall...it was a harrowing 40 minutes of oven wizardry that resulted in an awesomely moist, rich cake. (secret ingredient was a hot cup of coffee added to the batter...I brewed it, but I couldve just opened a vein and let my coffee-rich blood do the job).
So I am feeling like...TRIUMPHANT. I have saved the cocoa. I have wasted not. I have used the abundant ingredients of my pantry. I haveth bakethed. I cut the top off for me and my roommate--(still poor students, yo), frosted the sucker, and decided, wouldn't it be so fun if I took this delicious, made from scratch, cake to my homeless clinic clients? I mean, how precious am I? I am like...the BEST person ever. Will they not love and so appreciate this cake that I have made which might cost many dollars per slice at a Susie Cakes?
And so I presented my Gateau de Triomphe to the office. A few attorneys took slices and gave me the praise I, let's be real, EXPECTED because it was so yummy. SO I start offering it to clients who politely decline because they have: Diabetes. Gout. celiac disease, seizures, high cholesterol, etc etc.
Yeah, I totally forgot that my clients only have ER access to healthcare. And they don't actually want to go to there.
This leads me to the moral of this story: Donate a vegetable and fruit plate to your homeless clients or learn how to make a damn gluten-free kale cake. For the love of God, only rich people have the requisite gym memberships and cadillac healthcare to afford them the luxury of a piece of a conventional chocolate cake.
P.s. Please Please Please consider donating to get my innocent immigration client out of detention!
posted by Unknown @ 9:30 PM
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