Five types of cupcakes. Five frostings. Six hours in the kitchen. Four hour drive. Two days of crazy. One party. That sums up the couple days prior to, and the weekend itself.
It all started a few weeks ago with a phone call from the kitchenMage [mom] that my dad was planning a party. Fast forward to a week before the party, and he finally sends out invites. Yep, slacker! Mom and I get to talking, and she sends me a link to Cupcakes that Take the Cake’s post about cupcake kebobs. We could do that… but she’s swamped. I’m unemployed at the moment, which means too much time on my hands. She would make some (mango-ginger, dipped in chocolate) marshmallows, I would make the cupcakes. Simple enough task. Except we don’t do anything “simple” in this family.
Wednesday, I did my shopping in the morning for everything I needed for the mini-cupcakes. I informed my roommates that they were going to buy burgers for dinner, because I wasn’t letting them in the kitchen all night. And I camped out, for the rest of the afternoon, past evening and well into the night, baking. Knocked the temperature in my kitchen up to about 90f/32c at one point just from having the oven on for hours. As I was finished, around 11:30 that night, I packed up the cupcakes, and counted up 238 of the suckers. At the time the party attendance count was about 15 people. Luckily this turned out to be a little low, because way too many cupcakes for 15 people!
Packing up my car early on Thursday, I changed into semi-dressy clothes, because I was going to see RENT, before trekking down to evenTinierTown where my parents live. Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp reprising their roles for the farewell tour sort of made seeing it a necessity. As I headed out of Seattle at 11pm, I couldn’t find an on-ramp to the freeway that wasn’t shut down due to construction. An extra fifteen minutes of driving around and I managed to finally be on my way, with the need to make one last stop before I got to my parents. For strawberries for the cupcakebobs. Except I wanted to get out of Seattle first. Which turned into a production, because nothing was open at that hour. There are no 24-hour grocery stores south of Seattle (perhaps there are some in Tacoma, but not off the freeway and close), all the way down the rest of the state apparently. Except for Walmart. Somewhere I never shop, but we needed strawberries.
Walmart is remodeling. It’s 1am. It’s pouring down rain. I’m in dressy clothes, ballet flats, and a purple leather jacket. My cell phone in one hand, talking to mom. Pawing through a ton of 1 pound clamshells of giant strawberries, trying to find some that weren’t twice the size of the cupcakes. I must’ve been a bit of a spectacle, everyone kept stopping to give me funny looks. Yeah, well, I felt the same about the girl in the white shortshorts, hot pink tank top that barely covered her breasts and didn’t cover anything else, and flip-flops who was also shopping there at that hour!
And as if I didn’t have an eventful-enough time, I have a lovely bite mark on my right wrist from the barn cat who lives across the street from my parents, who decided that being spooked meant trying to bite my hand off. I’ve been claiming I got bitten by a vampire, because at least it’s more amusing of a story.
All in all, it was a crazy weekend, but worth the trip down, for a party full of good food, good company, and good music. Even if celebrating the solstice around here means watching it rain while we’re all crowded inside. Cupcake recipes are below the cut…
