two great tastes

With the closing of the Fuddruckers in Salem, my wife and I had to find a different place to stop for dinner on our last trip. We picked a random Cracker Barrel along I-81 in Virginia and were immediately disappointed by the question: "smoking or non-smoking?" Our non-smoking table was in a direct line of sight and smell from the smokers. Even though the non-smoking section was much larger, we had to wait for a table. There was no waiting for a smoking table.

Cracker Barrel has a country store where we could bide our time. One corner of the store had a display that showed they know about the current popularity of cupcakes. In addition to the cookbooks and standard muffin pans, they had a pretty neat Ice Cream Cone Cupcake Pan. The cake looks like a cone. The frosting takes the place of ice cream.



Rather than cupcakes that just look like ice cream cones, some people will be celebrating summer with cupcakes that are mini ice cream cakes. You can make your own or buy some at a place called MaggieMoo's that I will have to try sometime when I'm out at Turkey Creek. The ladies at Cupcakes Take the Cake taste tested a brand called PhillySwirl that is available at Sam's Club. I agree with their assessment that these seem to stretch the limits of what we call cupcakes. Not that it's a bad thing.

Ice cream cupcakes would be great but what we really need for this weekend are some graduation cupcakes. Or the time to make them.

move 'em on, head 'em up

When there are changes to my blogroll or the sidebar, I try to make them on the first of the month. It's because I started my blog on the first of a month and somehow it makes sense in my mind.

I found Cupcakes Take the Cake when they posted entries about some local bakeries. They did it again today with a great story about a cupcake just like the one I tried last week except that it was mistaken for a bomb at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge.

Slashfood is a site I've been visiting regularly for some time. Yesterday they showed us how to make cake-sicles, although they look more like cookie-sicles.

Amelia's Space often has a peek behind the scenes at WVLT. Today she posted about their coverage of the closure of I-40 through downtown. One day last month she took us to the farewell party for Jessa Goddard and Kim Bedford.

At last month's Blogfest gathering, I enjoyed visiting with Doug of Reality Me and his wife Cathy of Domestic Psychology. Her funny post about trying to find the bathroom that night made me want to check back periodically.

After the recent Papal visit, a friend reminded me to check Whispers in the Loggia for their intense coverage. When the Pope gets close to naming a new bishop for Knoxville, we will probably read about it first on their site.

Can anybody recommend a blog about improv? It would be great to find one that I like and to add it to the blogroll on June 1. That date has some improv significance to me.

always more fun

The cupcake fad is about to hit Knoxville in a big way. We already have VG's Bakery and MagPies, both of which I still haven't tried. However I have discovered another blog devoted to the little treats, Cupcakes Takes the Cake.

Now The Cupcakery has established its first foothold in East Tennessee with a delivery-only location in Oak Ridge. They plan to open a Bearden store in June. I had the opportunity to taste a couple of their flavors one afternoon last week when a box was delivered to the office. There were enough for me to take two varieties home. I cut each in half and shared them with my wife. The Double Chocolate had a disc of baking chocolate stuck into the buttercream icing as a garnish. The Peanut Butter Cup had a crumbled Reese's on top. As you would expect, the creamy frosting steals the show from the chocolate cake. That's probably why a cupcake shop in Los Angeles sells icing shots for 75 cents. I think I would enjoy one of these gourmet cupcakes with some buttercream injected into the middle. Can't have too much frosting.

If the Bearden store were already open, I would be tempted to swing by this week for the featured flavor, the Graceland. It has banana cake with peanut butter icing. I've always loved banana cake. By the way, why can't I ever find the frozen Sara Lee Banana Cake I loved as a child? Anyhow, back to the point. The Cupcakery will offer Graceland cupcakes from April 28 through May 3. I wonder if they might be similar to the Elvis Cupcakes I saw online. One of the blog commenters suggests a Fluffernutter cupcake. This. Must. Happen.

Bearden will actually be home to two cupcake shops. Their online calendar says Cities Cupcake Boutique will have its grand opening on Sunday, May 18 but according to their store hours, they will be closed Sundays. When I was a kid, Sundays were the busiest day at the Crestwood Bakery. Everyone went there after church. Oh yeah, back to the point again. Cities cupcakes are each named after a different city. Knoxville gets an orange cupcake. In a bit of political commentary, the vanilla cupcake is named after Washington, DC. Maybe they can do a peanut butter and banana cupcake and name it after Memphis.

lead us not into temptation

Only a week into Lent and I'm feeling the pressure. The culprit is cupcakes. They are everywhere lately. Last night some showed up at the Einstein Simplified show for Dave Snow's birthday. Although I didn't eat any myself because of Lent, I did persuade several of my fellow improvisers to twist the tops off to make cupcake sandwiches. Or icing sandwiches, if you prefer to call them that.

A few days back I spotted some turtle cupcakes at Food City. As a fan of both turtles and cupcakes, I had to take a picture. I saw a different take on turtle cupcakes at a store in Pigeon Forge recently. They sell a soft plastic mold for a pull apart cake, which is one step better than the cupcake cakes I saw at Wal-Mart last year.



While I was adding the links to Saturday's post, I saw a picture of a New York Giants cupcake on Slashfood.com. The accompanying story had a link to Clever Cupcakes, the Montreal bakery that made it. Slashfood gave us a homemade chocolate cupcake over the weekend too. Following a series of links that started on that site eventually brought me to a blog called Cupcake Project.

On top of all that, today's News Sentinel is all about the cupcake. The food section has a great picture that will make you hungry, which therefore qualifies the photo as "food porn," the snarky blogosphere term for glamour shots of anything edible. The pictured cupcakes are from VG's Bakery in Farragut.

The article also mentions MagPies Cakes in the Old City. Despite the pie in their name, they sell celebration cakes and cupcakes. The photos they posted on Picasa certainly could be called "food porn" too. As I looked at the pictures, I wondered why I've never succumbed to their enticement. After all, I've been going to the Old City on Tuesday nights for almost six years. I've also been in that part of town on several Sunday afternoons for practice sessions with people auditioning to join our improv group. MagPies' operating hours give me the answer. They're closed at 4:00 on Tuesdays and all day on Sundays, which means I've never seen them open.

hankey-panky

Kathy's husband Keith told me that they've never seen "South Park." Although known for his good sense of humor, he was being completely serious. This means that Kathy truly had no idea that her chocolate-covered marshmallow men looked exactly like the Santa-hat-wearing character from the show. The fact that she didn't know makes the coincidence all the funnier. Weird Ralph must have agreed. He submitted the blog entry to Digg.com

After reading the post, Kathy and Keith felt compelled to bring me some of her cream-filled cupcakes with ganache icing. It was absolutely delicious.

now showing in my head

There used to be a disproportionate amount of Food Network shows on my TiVo. I could watch almost anything they showed, especially "Unwrapped" and "Good Eats." Plus I would search for programs about BBQ competitions. Over time I found myself watching less Food Network as other shows grabbed my attention. Last night I once again felt the magnetic pull of food on TV when I tuned to a new channel on my satellite system: Food Network in High Definition. Wow. I could watch it all day. The schedules on the HD and SD channels are different. Fortunately for me, there are plenty of "Unwrapped" and "Good Eats" episodes in HD.

When I go to the supermarket I often can't resist taking pictures of food items I see. It's almost as if I had my own imaginary Food Network show. I had heard that cupcake specialty shops were a hot item in L.A. Our local stores are taking their cupcakes up a notch. I've seen some decorated to look like those dogs that resemble floor mops and some that are supposed to be cute space aliens. I was also intrigued by the birthday "cakes" comprised of many cupcakes that are all iced as one. In the photo below you can see a monster face next to a Care Bears rainbow.

sweet teeth

The staff at Garde Bien offered me a cupcake when I arrived for my haircut today. They were celebrating the birthdays of an employee and of a favorite customer, Carol Bass. I first met Mrs. Bass at the salon on the day of my makeover. After I finished my cupcake, I realized that I had forgotten to try eating it sandwich style. Cupcakes are an infrequent treat. I'll try to remember to put the icing in the middle next time.

Today's newspaper had a recipe for a different sandwich style treat. The Mint Chip Monster is made by splitting a chocolate snack cake and putting ice cream in the middle. Kids can decorate it to look like a monster. The idea for a fun food is reminiscent of the hamburger cookies I saw at a swim meet last year.

I briefly flipped past the AFI special on CBS tonight. They were up to the movie "Nashville" in their countdown of the top 100 films. In the clip, I heard a reference to the Grand Ole Opry, sponsored by Goo Goo Clusters. It got me wondering if the candies got their name from the initials of the Opry. They didn't. The Goo Goo website points out that the candies have been around 13 years longer than the Opry.

rollin' down the Imperial Highway

A friend in Burbank sent me a few episodes of a new local show called "yourLAtv" that airs weekdays at noon on KNBC-TV. It's sort of a modern day version of the old "PM Magazine" shows that used to air in many markets.

As a former Burbanker, I really enjoyed the show. Each day they identify the four best of something, like nightclubs, steakhouses or sushi joints. One of the episodes I saw had a taste test between two bakeries that sell only cupcakes. One was in Beverly Hills and the other was in Burbank. I can't remember which of the two places sells shots of icing. Just icing! I need to go there on my next visit.

Viewers can send in their own videos to the show. Given that it's L.A., the tapes are better than amateur quality but I suspect that some of the tapes I saw were shot by a crew from KNBC. One of the episodes featured a podcaster giving tips to viewers. He wrote that the TV station sent a crew to interview him.

The best segment I saw was sent in by Paul Scheer, who often appears on "Best Week Ever." The piece was about the show he does at the UCB Theatre. He and his co-stars improvise comedy based on audience members' MySpace profiles. They use a laptop and a projector to display the page on a big screen. Sounds like fun.