On Borders and Wedding Cakes

Last night Bob and I went to Borders for what we term our "cheap Saturday night date." We check out the new books, get a cappucino (me) and a hot chocolate (him) and then relax with a magazine or two, our drinks, and wait for the entertainment which ranges from good to bad local or nearly local talent. I pulled out a magazine on wedding cakes.....

Now usually the bride-type magazines have two or three wedding cakes pictured -- this one must have had 150 to 200 wedding cakes of all types from traditional (whatever passes for traditional these days) to theme cakes, castles, individual little mini-cakes, and one that was so bedecked with flowers, fruit and leaves I was hard pressed to find the cake itself! These were the sort of cakes that I suspect if you had to ask the price, you couldn't afford it.

I'm not sure I know the historic tradition behind the wedding cake -- I THOUGHT it was to provide a dessert for the reception, but looking at these, I'm not sure I'd want to eat one of them. In fact, I did peruse a recipe.....make your cake, cover with this sort of fondant frosting business, and let it sit for 3 to5 days. Three to five DAYS? Sara Lee pitches their stuff the next day! What IS this 3 to 5 days stuff? If we are going to have a cake, I'd like it to at least be a fresh one!

Our local Dominick's grocery store makes a cake that is to die for. They claim it is the moistest cake you've ever had. We picked one up for dessert one night because it was a "hamburger" cake -- made in the shape of, and frosted like a large hamburger. It was delicious! So when the EC were checking out cakes, they asked if Dominick's wedding cake was made with that particular batter. No, they were told. It's too moist and won't hold together.

Well, if you are paying $350 ++ for a wedding cake, you'd like it to taste a bit better than flavored wallboard. Back to the drawing board.

This weekend a lot of things seemed to come together. A dear friend will loan us a veil, a tiara, pew bows for the church, and some streamers. Wow! That is amazing. She's just put three daughters through weddings -- two of whom got married within just about two months of each other. We may have done a wedding 7 1/2 years ago, but I'm needing all the help and advice I can get -- and this friend -- and some others -- have been incredibly helpful. Much better than those MOB books I was reading which actually started this blog. Torrey is doing a three day modeling/promotional gig for a conference in Indy, so she hasn't even seen the 20+ e-mails I've sent, replete with pictures of all of these things. I hope she's as excited as I am....

The "cheap" date at Borders turned out to be not so cheap after all.....there was a new Douglas Preston and a new Clive Cussler -- two of my favorite novelists. A book on Statistics for Dummies (which I need for teaching Evidence Based Practice and How to Read and Understand Research), a book on writing and life by Anne Lamott (another of my favorite authors), and a couple of 2006 calendars. Good thing we don't indulge in these "cheap" dates very often. John's Christian Bookstore is another expensive date....

Maybe we could just have a bunch of hamburger cakes for the wedding. We all like hamburgers. The cake itself was delicious -- and it would probably be a lot less than a traditional wedding cake.

It would be memorable anyway.

Hmmmm -- maybe I'll run it by the EC.

Or maybe not.