I’ve felt a little lost for the past few days, since the plan had been to take our new Facebook page and our IndieGoGo campaign (17.222% there!), and just completely plug the crap out of them until you guys contributed money just to shut me the hell up. And trust me, we WILL reach that point, so the sooner we reach the goal the less painful and awkward this is going to get for everyone.
Then the other night, right after I had finished the Tumblr post and all my social media-ing waaaay past my bedtime, the earthquake hit. And I don’t want to be cliched and dramatic and say that nothing seemed to matter anymore, because that would be a total lie- my goals and the things in my life are still important. But suddenly you do feel this horrible, horrible event hanging over everything, even if it’s a world away.
As someone who lives a semi-public life as a business owner, you really don’t know whether to address it or not. I remember around my 16th birthday there was a terrible plane crash off the coast of Long Island that had no survivors. The first few days there was round the clock coverage on the news and everyone was glued to their sets. And then as the week went on, you couldn’t go anywhere without having to deal with that plane crash, and people started to get really horribly sick of it. All those poor people dead, and the media had run the story to the point where it created nothing but disdain and apathy. Mind you, this is 1996 we’re talking about. This is the days of AOL dial-up and 46 cable channels, 6 of which were two Jamaican guys screaming about Jesus on BCAT. And even then we couldn’t escape information. Now with my Blackberry, my laptop, any my iPad, I’m addicted to it like cocaine.
So I see two scenarios: one is to ignore it and just go along with business as usual, which actually makes everything more emotionally awkward knowing that I seem like a callous bitch. Plus, I’m incapable of doing this as we all know I’m a mom, which means that my heart is 1000x too big. That doesn’t sound like a problem until you find yourself unable to sleep at night because of a sad story you read in the paper, or you can’t hear the sound of a child crying without your heart breaking a little, even though when my kids are crying at the top of their lungs like a bunch of uncivilized wildebeests in Duane Reade because I won’t buy them a box of Entemann’s doughnuts I feel like putting them into a cannon and shooting them straight into the sun.
The second option is to address it and risk the chance of sounding like the thousands of people on Twitter saying things like “Everything that everyone has ever talked about is stupid and shallow when there are REAL problems happening in Japan”. I mean, you can say that about anything, can’t you? “All your dreams and everything you do is pointless because of Darfur/Bahrain/the rainforest/global warming/etc”. That’s just impossible. I cannot feel guilty for living my life or proceeding with my goals because there is tragedy in the world. I can only hope that tragedy inspires me to become more generous and understanding, because otherwise the knowledge that it’s there just eats me alive.
So I decided to make a third option, which was to get up on this site and tell you that I have no idea how to properly react to this. And I bet you don’t either, and that’s ok. We weren’t raised to have to make a public statement for the record on Facebook or Twitter every day, and we’re all still figuring this out. As long as we’re feeling and sympathizing, we’re good.
Even though I’m not so good at the reacting, I’m pretty good at action. Matt and I have decided that 25% of all private orders placed for delivery next week will be donated to Doctors Without Borders to help with the relief efforts in Japan. We don’t have a pile of money in the bank we can send over, but we have four hands between us that can work hard, and maybe do a little bit of good. Click HERE for details on private orders- we deliver to offices & corporations in Manhattan all the time.
Now back to “trivial” stuff- St. Patrick’s Day! WOOOOO!!! I love doing holiday flavors, because they seem so precious and special before they are all gobbled up and go back to the vault for another year. This year’s limited St. Patty’s flavor is Irish Soda Bread with a clotted cream buttercream & Drambuie soaked raisins. I HATE raisins and I love this cake. It’ll be back on Friday if you miss it the next two days, then back into the vault for next year……
Also if you’re looking to get wasted AND eat cupcakes during your festivities this year, there is only one spot to do that- THE DOUBLE WINDSOR in Windsor Terrace! They’re getting lots of Car Bombs, and I was told they’re bringing in a whole boatload of special Irish beers for the tap that I’ve never heard of.
And Midtown, it is REALLY REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT YOU PAY ATTENTION RIGHT NOW! Beginning this afternoon, we are in JOE IN GRAND CENTRAL STATION! They have the Irish Coffee and the Car Bombs- which are perfect for a work break because they create the illusion you’re getting hammered at 2pm, when really you need to behave so you don’t flash your boss. We bake them because we care.
Clockwise from bottom right: Irish Coffee, Soda Bread, Car Bomb, Rue McClanahan
NEW LIMITED EDITION!!!! SODA BREAD: Soda bread cake, clotted cream buttercream, Drambuie soaked golden raisins
IRISH COFFEE: Bailey’s-espresso cake & buttercream, ganache, crushed white chocolate
CAR BOMB: Chocolate Guinness stout cake, Bailey’s buttercream, Jameson whiskey ganache
RUE MCCLANAHAN: Peach cake, cheesecake buttercream, peach compote
Available at:
HOM- Third Avenue & 88th Street, Bay Ridge
TAZZA CAFES- Clark St off Henry AND Henry St off Atlantic, Brooklyn Heights
CRESPELLA-7th Ave off 9th St, Park Slope
BLUE APRON FOODS- Union St. off 7th Ave, Park Slope
JOE: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY- W. 120th btwn Broadway & Amsterdam Avenue
JOE: GRAND CENTRAL STATION- I don’t really know how to describe where it is- is there a map in there like they have at the mall? It’s near the Greybar passage if you can find that. Maybe just ask somebody- I’m obviously useless.
*Note: Not all locations receive all flavors. The flavors recieved are determined by each store’s management, not by us. If there’s something in the upcoming rotation you want to see, let them know directly.
