Scarfing Cupcakes
11.3.2012
After about three days of Indian Summer, autumn turned cold again, just in time for Hallowe'en. It's not a big holiday here, but the turn of the Celtic New Year, All Saint's Day, when the veil between the realms of the living and the dead is at its thinnest, is celebrated, and it also marks the beginning of the Christmas decoration season. There's no Thanksgiving here to buffer the time between Toussaint and Nöel.
We did find one place where Hallowe'en flowered (or floured) for an afternoon, at least. It was the third annual Cupcake Camp, a 100% nonprofit charity bake sale with 2000+ cupcakes, most donated by gourmet and boutique bakeries, that were sold to more than 600 attendees. It's held in a community center next to Canal St. Martin, everyone donates their labor and wares (Paris Play donated the official event photographer this year), and all proceeds benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation in France. This year's Cupcake Camp raised €5500 (about $7000).
After celebrities in the baking community sampled the wares that were put up for judging, the public was let in, and the rush to buy cupcakes was on.
We were soooooo good that we didn't even sample a milligram of sugar (we're back on the wagon), but we did get a fashion rush. If there's anything that marks a Paris fashionista, it's the scarf, tied, draped, bound or loose. It's a look that Parisians pull off so successfully, they even wear them indoors. If today was any indication, solid colors and patterns are running neck-and-neck for the coming chilly season, but, given that style is so personal, anything still goes.
More photos of scarves and cupcakes here, and here's the Cupcake Camp website (with links to the best cupcake bakers in Paris, for those who indulge).
Hallowe'en, Make-A-Wish, New Year, charity, cupcakes, fashion, food, scarves in Paris Life
Reader Comments (13)
Wonderful. The scarf is the icing on couture!
Susan,
Thank you! That's a witty metaphor. And you're right, this is why scarves are so delicious.
XO,
Kaaren & Richard
fun event! what will power you have.
Betsy,
Thank you-- it helps that cupcakes are not our dessert of choice. But it was a fun event.
Love,
Kaaren & Richard
Isn't "scarf" French for "bark"? The little dogs milling about yapping, "Scarf! Scarf!" would either be wanting to eat the cupcakes or commenting on all the trendy neck wear. OK, I'm done.
SCARF OF SWEET VISIONS
1
Scarf of sweet visions thrown across the landscape,
I call on you!
I want my hearers to settle in their chairs
knowing they'll be treated kindly.
I keep seeing a
landscape with maybe a tiny figure
in the distance, walking along,
crossing fields by fences.
Largely green. Green hills, bushy trees, blue sky,
mid-summer warm, high buzz of
insects occasionally in the
air, idly, their
little musical figures, right near
our ears,
this whole vision eaten by a whale, a
sea-monster of monstrous size and
demon disposition, one
swipe at the continent and its
huge mouth closes
over from above and
up from underneath taking farm-houses, cities,
whole governments in hyperbolic meetings in large
rooms with mahogany
tables, but it's not a
real whale, it's made of yellow
fire, it curves up around
cornfields and lakes, engulfs the
wanderers and
sojourners while its
objective almost
benevolent eyes gaze outward
unafraid,
and our sweet reverie is
shattered by this
black slice of death down through the
delicious elegance of green fields and blue skies,
and we are the distant
figure walking there, come
forward in a flash to look
face on into the
horror!
2
But it all happened so
suddenly that what have we
got to do but
walk on, and we
do, and the trees and things alongside the
sides of our
peripheral vision also travel, until we are
walking with wave-crest and squawk, bird-
dart and squirrel-curl of
tail as it
scrambles up a
tree. The
whole world moves
along with us as we
walk, tops of
cityscapes disappear below the
horizon as if
sinking, lower edges of
clouds reflect back
pictures of gardens in
circular
formation whose
gateways are our own
heart-beats, our
foreheads are dark
hedges arched above the
gate, our
bodies are the faintly groaning sound of
growth from
root to bud and down to
ground again, without
cease.
Circular garden
revolving through our
beings without
cease!
3
O whole universe moving as we
move, you are a
gnat caught for a fragile
moment in the
light, how can you be
blamed? Wing-beat and
feeler-wiggle, and what goes on inside your
inscrutable head, surrounded by
shell. Universe of
wavering fronds, ferns, friendly or
unfriendly thongs, thorns, twine, winding tendrils
around edges, through
surfaces, tingling and
wiggling
underground, looking only for the farthest
reach of their
destiny, to be root to the tips of their
roots, bud and flower to
petal-tip and aroma-nose, to brain of the
one bending down inside its tender
vulva to inhale that
smoking smell, until whole
rose-gardens burst into
bloom in the
brain as fresh if not
fresher than the
one outside, in which identical
strangers also bend to
inhale
universes waiting to be
transmitted through electrical
impulses like long-distance
telephone messages that sound like they're coming from
just down the block! Interior Rose!
Intimate petal'd apparel of
universe we live and
die in, flesh
ignited and quenched by
desire, light
bathing our final
limbs and the little shock of momentary
death freezing for a
solid second our
infinite flutter of eyelids.
___________________________________________________
3/8-9/90 (from A Maddening Disregard for the Passage of Time)
Dear Daniel,
We've missed your poems. I thought as I read, you cannot possibly already have written a poem about scarves too (as well as every other thing on earth), but yes, you already had, in 1990. Thank you for the delight.
Sending you wishes for health and poems unending.
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard
Kaaren & Richard,
Just last week mom and I were discussing our upcoming trip to France, and how scarves and berets are typical of Parisian couture. You've confirmed it.
Tomorrow I am meeting with a friend for coffee at the decadently satisfying Extraordinary Desserts here in San Diego. I'm inspired to wear a scarf and have a cupcake with that coffee.
http://extraordinarydesserts.com/desserts.htm
Next I'll look forward to a P.P. on baguettes and berets.
Love,
Marguerite
What wonderful faces! And creative cupcakes! Beautiful people... beautiful treats...everyone is happy. :)
And what willpower you two have not to sample even a little tidbit! But a feast for the eyes, for sure. Thanks so much for sharing this.
(It's funny, I had never put together All Saints and the surname Toussaint...!)
Sorry to have been absent for awhile, but am eager to catch up with Paris Play.
Love!
dawna
Dear Marguerite,
I just looked up the Extraordinary Desserts website, and it's impressive. This is serious pastry. And the chef Karen Krasne was trained in Paris! I bet you had a chocolate mousse with Lion Kona coffee.
I'll take you and your mom to a few great shops for scarves when you get to Paris.
As far as writing about baguettes, I'd rather EAT them. But keep sending those suggestions. I'll take you up on one.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Dear Dawna,
Thank you! Richard thanks you! It would be nice to think it's our formidable will power that allowed us to resist temptation, but no, it's just not my favorite dessert. Now that we've been indulging our taste buds for almost two years here, we're returning to our more temperate ways lately.
I just realized the meaning of Toussaint, too.
Thank you for your comments, and love!
Kaaren (& Richard)
Dear K & R,
You called me on it. The Lion Gold Kona coffee's flavor and its effects are unprecedented. It is a conversation stimulator, for sure. And anything, but especially made with chocolate, absolutely lives up to the venue name, Extraordinary Desserts.
A-ha! Thank you for informing me about Chef Karen Krasne's education in France. She has a few superb restaurants around town; the best in my opinion.
I will look forward to our scarf shopping spree.
Love,
M
Dear Marguerite,
Stop it! Coffee and chocolate pastry--too tempting.
That's what her website says. If you're in San Diego, you don't need to read it, you can eat it.
We'll have fun in Paris finding you the perfect scarf.
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard