a piece of cake

I didn’t bake a thing yesterday. But I made a cake just the same. I took the raw materials of sheet cake and stark white frosting. Mixed tentative drops of food coloring and declared the end result just the hue I was thinking of. I sketched with intent and sliced deliberately, carefully. I stacked cake and considered pastry bag tips and how I could pipe and get what I was looking for. What I was thinking of. A thin slice or two for a cover, a column for a spine, thin piping to show the creases and a careful, slow serrated tip to trace the lines of pages along the side. And a bookmark for good measure. I walked the line between art and craft and ended up further along than I thought I would.

And walking down Guerrero with a small cake shaped like a book, I had no idea what to do. Even if it did taste good, I had fussed over it too much for it to be appealing. What I constructed, what I put together wasn’t for taste at all. Flavor had nothing to do with it. I tried to give it away on Valencia to a tattered man carrying a garbage bag. “Do you want this cake?” “No, but thank you.” I couldn’t leave it there, on top of a trash can. No one would know what the hell it is. Sculpture? Play-Doh? It has to be introduced. This is cake. It’s in my fridge, waiting for enough time to pass until I can throw it away with lessened guilt.

It’s a start. I might make a cake again. Maybe craft a mustache cake for my dad’s 75th birthday next February. Or make a bacon cake for my brother. Maybe.