Cakes and Thanksgiving

Hello Codets. Just got back from a few cake deliveries this morning. Our cakery is severely growing. I even handed out business cards in an elevator while on delivery this morning. These babies take a lot of work but their turnover is fantastic. Biggest issue cropping up is enough space to make multiple cakes at a time and of course....delivery. I'm a nightmare when delivering cakes. Delivering cakes in the midst of Sao Paulo morning traffic is hell. I have to hold the cakes on my lap to prevent annihilation during the common event of slamming on the breaks for a rogue motorcycle or not-so-stealth lane changer. Sao Paulo drivers remind me of big dogs who live with small dogs; the big dogs act like the small terriers and try to get into places they really shouldn't. Two foot gap? Of course my car fits. Perhaps who has it the worst during a delivery is H, whose every tweak of the wheal I curse at. I'm learning to relax, but cakes are precious cargo. For today at least, all our little cakes made it safely to their destinations.

Cakes aside, this Thursday is Thanksgiving.  I won't be doing anything special. We celebrated an early Thanksgiving last Wednesday (a holiday here) with a large group of our gringo friends. Giant turkey, mashed sweet potatoes, apple crumble, wine, wine, wine and i made cornbread stuffing, roasted balsamic pears and a pumpkin torte. The best part about a hot (meaning weather) Thanksgiving is that you really can pile on the ice cream. I am thankful to have this large misfit group of friends in Sao Paulo to act as my surrogate family. To fill in the void of like-minded ideas, gestures, customs that come with your own culture. Then again only a few of us were actually from the US or Canada. Perhaps we share these things simply because we are all out of place. My friends here come from everywhere. From Malaysia, Spain, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Argentina--but we all feel at home at Thanksgiving knowing that we made one of the largest cities in the world feel a little bit smaller. Well, that and getting a giant group of international hard core foodies and wine-enthusiasts together usually results in a good time. Happy Thanksgiving!

My cakes this morning were both small; about 15 cm in diameter. The Tiffany blue textured cake comprised of brown sugar vanilla cake (and was gluten free) and had two layered fillings of Irish cream chocolate truffle and Swiss meringue butter cream. So overall ten distinct layers. The outer frosting was traditional butter cream. The pink cake was a vanilla angel cake with two layered fillings of vanilla Swiss meringue and strawberry cream, also a total of ten distinct layers, also finished in traditional butter cream. viva la cake.

I have one final and quick announcement to any Sao Paulo residents reading this---please come to the SP Night Market in Jardins this Saturday, it is the final market of the year and is focused on Christmas shopping. I will be there selling Vietnamese pho (come at lunch time!) a few sweets and a few fun edible Christmas gifts that yes, will last until Christmas. see you there -and to the rest of you, have a lovely Thanksgiving.