Sam and Elizabeth were both super gorgeous and very easy to work with (and I’m not just saying that because Sam is from New York like me.) Their wedding was at the Casino Ballroom on Catalina Island in California.

They chose to do a quartet of rustic-style cakes in different flavors. Believe it or not, this was the most challenging design I’ve had to execute all year. It’s not that the technique is difficult–in fact, it’s quite easy and something a home baker could easily achieve. (That’s the point of these cakes, right? To conjure up warm fuzzy memories of the homemade cakes your mom made when you were a kid? I say your mom, not my mom, because my mom definitely would not create a home baked cake, not when I was a kid and definitely not now. You can read more about her here.) With my other cakes, I strive for perfection: perfectly iced sides and top, perfectly smooth fondant. With these cakes, the difficulty was in intentionally creating something so imperfect. I damn near cried.

Anyway, that’s not the point. I really wanted to share this because I love the creative way Sam and Elizabeth instructed their guests to “swap, split, or sample” the various flavors of cake. Clients often ask me how it works at a wedding when serving more than one kind of cake. (Yes, my cakes are that good that couples often cannot limit it to just one flavor and end up choosing several.) Truth is, I don’t really know. I do like the idea of guests just digging in to each other’s cake with their forks, blatantly disregarding any conventional notions of table etiquette. Sam and Elizabeth came up with a really great way to address the issue, and it’s pretty much exactly what I imagined:

From now on, when clients ask me how it works with multiple flavor cakes, I know just what I’ll say.

Photo credit: Shana Cassidy Photography and Caroline Kidder.

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The search for commercial space can best be compared to dating: you have your highs, your lows, excitement and letdowns,  a few heartbreaks, and then maybe, with a little luck, you find the perfect one.

I’ve seen a lot of spaces in the past few weeks, learned a lot about Connecticut commercial code (it differs significantly–and expensively–from California), argued with my sister, made up with my sister, and thought and rethought my plan.

Space # 1 can best be described as something that might appear on Hoarders: Restaurant Edition. I won’t share any pictures of it lest anyone should associate such nastiness with my business.

Space # 2 was in a great neighborhood and had a really nice layout. I just loved the cute exterior and the exposed brick walls. I could even get past the fact that there was no parking, but it had no AC, an absolute must for me, so I had to pass.

Space # 3 worked on the inside, but the outside just wasn’t, well, cute enough for me. (The fact that the landlord decided he didn’t want to rent it to us is beside the point.)

Space # 4 was really expensive and had seemingly little to offer, so we eliminated it right off the bat. We ended up revisiting this space, and as it turned out the realtor misquoted the rent by almost $1,000, but the low ceilings and other cosmetic issues were real turn-offs for me. These pictures actually make it look better than it did in real life.

Space # 5 was super cute but way out of our price range.

Space # 6 might be the love of my life. High ceilings, bright sunlight, ample storage, reasonable rent. The neighborhood is adorable and very supportive of small local businesses. We configured a design for the front (on this fabulous website I found) that I think would work for both me and my sister, and now we just have to tackle some minor logistical issues (Health Department, Planning and Zoning, Water Department, Buildings, get a structural engineer to sign off on everything, buy all our equipment, get a commercial contractor to do our buildout, etc.) and we’re in businesses. Easy peasy.

I think it might look even cuter in person. Here’s a shot of the exterior. Picture it with an awning, a window display, some ambient lighting, and my logo.

A shot of the interior looking out.

I think this is my favorite part. The already high ceiling is currently covered in acoustic tiles. We pushed one up to see what’s underneath, and it has the ORIGINAL TIN TILE CEILING! This is a photo taken of the ceiling, so this is what you’d see if you looked directly up.

Hopefully my next post will include good news and a signed lease. Wish me luck!

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Well we moved to Connecticut just two days before the hurricane (my husband, a California native, was both horrified and fascinated) and a few days after the earthquake (my husband, a California native, felt right at home). So far, I’ve found two good things about Connecticut, namely:
1. My family is here and
2. The spray paint at Home Depot is not held captive behind a metal cage but is instead displayed freely on the shelves like any other paint. (I am a big consumer of spray paint and am therefore intimately familiar with the challenges of securing a disgruntled Home Depot employee from the paint department who no doubt looks upon spray paint with disdain and asking him to unlock said cage to liberate the chosen can.)

It seems I seriously overestimated the amount of blogging I’d be doing, and my efforts have been thwarted mostly because I:
1. Have no time and
2. Have no internet even though we moved on August 26th.

If that sounds like an awfully long time to be internetless (and trust me, it is), you can thank:
1. Hurricane Irene, which (a) put new cable installation low down on the list of priorities for the cable companies, making it extremely difficult to get an appointment and (b) also made it impossibly humid so that when the cable company did finally arrive to install the cable, the newly refinished floors still weren’t dry (even though it had been a week) and couldn’t be walked on and
2. Comcast, who, once we were finally able to reschedule our appointment, said they would be at our house between 2pm and 5pm and called at 7pm (by which time we were en route to my sister’s house for dinner) to say they were on their way. Their next available appointment was not until this Wednesday, so my husband opted to wait for AT&T whose next available appointment is on Saturday, September 17th.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Dude, you should just take your laptop, head to Starbucks, grab a latte, and blog from there like a normal person.” This would be a good option, but:
1. My laptop go stolen out of my house about a month before we moved and
2. I quit caffeine (it’s like crack for me) on September 1st.

Meanwhile, I’ve been considerably more productive around the house without the interruption of the internet, and have made some good progress on the search for commercial space. My sister (The Soup Girl ) and I will be sharing kitchen space and dividing the front of the house into consultation space for me and a retail area for her. After viewing several spaces, I think we’ve found a place that has reasonable rent and ample kitchen space in North Haven, about five minutes from my house. I should know more in the coming days. (Of course I wanted to document the whole process in film but:
1. I couldn’t find the camera and
2. Even if I could find the camera, my husband hasn’t hooked up the computer yet so I don’t have access to our photo editing software.)
My sister and I are really excited about the new venture, and I will definitely be sharing photos of our progress going forward.

Other than that, things should be back to normal by this weekend. Thanks for your patience and for hanging in there with me. I look forward to more blogging soon.

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