Free cupcakes...

I have delegated one of my 'give away' days to David Horvitz because he has a really really good website on which he is selling many things you didn't know you wanted until you see them offered.

I bought him giving away the cupcakes above. Apparently people enjoyed them a lot. This is what he says on his website about it:

Sarah Salway purchased the giving away of cupcakes from Sugar Sweet and Sunshine on June 4, 2008 from 2:49 - 2:58pm. The first was given away to a man selling flowers on Ave A, and the last were given away to people in Thompson Square Park.

Not all of the things David's selling involve icing and sweet things. You can buy a picture of the sky, or an envelope filled with a star sand from a small Okinawan island called Taketomi, which David will visit for you.

The world needs more strangeness like this, that's for sure.



(ps - I googled the Sugar Sweet and Sunshine bakery and think it's this one here in New York. For a thousand pounds I will visit it for you and eat every single one of those cupcakes on their website. Yum. Even the pistacho ones.)

Hey cupcake, how are you doing?

(cartoon from the wonderful Harold's Planet)

What's not to like about cupcakes? I made my first batch for possibly years the other day and it was pure pleasure - not least because I'd forgotten how much fun icing is to plan, to scrape on, to decorate after, and to look at (and to just dip your little finger into when it's on the cake and try to get a taste without anyone noticing the mark). Admittedly Nigella Lawson is a problem. 'Oooo, you've been reading Nigella,' some nameless-never-to-be-offered-cupcakes-again-person said when I handed him the plate. I really really hate it when people claim ownership by stamping their names on things which should be universal, as Nigella Lawson seems to have done with cupcakes. In fact, this is probably one of the reasons why I'm developing an itch against academics. They say something completely obvious to the rest of us, write it again and again, albeit in slightly different ways in a book or a paper, and suddenly it is 'their theory' and you can't mention it again without quoting their name. Anyway, she (NL, not the particular academic I have in mind) has done the same with denim jackets - has anyone else noticed that no one with dark hair can ever wear a denim jacket again without people saying 'Ooo Nigella,' in silly voices. It's just not fair. But back to cupcakes, mine were delicious and made us all very happy and I'm still clearing up the hundreds and thousands that didn't make the final jump on to the top of the icing, albeit very slowly with a wetted fingertip so I can savour them more.

And I'm going to do a writing prompt today - and that is SCRAPING THE LAST ICING FROM THE BOWL.

ps don't forget Your Messages for daily November pleasure. The responses are absolutely amazing. I don't fancy the chances of Lynne and I choosing thirty without coming to blows as to which we'll be forced to leave out.