Happy Birthday to the Cake Shop!

Come celebrate the Cake Shop's First Birthday with us! We would like to thank you for a stellar first year at our Haywood Road location, and toast to many cake-full years to come! Live music, a cake raffle to benefit AMURT/Haiti Fund, Treats, Beverages, and so much love we won't even know what to do with ourselves! Specials on valentine's Sweethearts and Broken Hearts Cakes, Mardi Gras Beads, King Cake, and Much Much More!

Core Values of the Bountiful Cities Project

As a member of the Board of Directors of the Bountiful Cities Project (and having been active in this organization for 9 years), I spent time last week with the rest of the board and staff to develop our organization; as a part of our ongoing strategic planning process, we identified four core values that guide our work as an organization. These values were inspiring to me, and I wanted to share them with you. This is the work of BCP- to work with communities in Asheville to enliven community self-reliance through urban agriculture.

Our work is guided by commitments to four key values of Community, Social Justice, Education, and Sustainability. I believe that challenging our assumptions about what these words mean, and working to live in integrity with these goals, just might be what brings about the much-needed healing that is possible in our communities and society.

Community
Healthy communities consist of: shared and diverse cultures, cooperation, safety, support, health, respect, trust, self-reliance, and love; within and among individuals, families, and groups. Bountiful Cities is committed to fostering healthy human relationships by nurturing these community values.


Social Justice
Bountiful Cities is committed to ending oppression based on race, class, gender, culture, age, religion, and sexuality and to creating social justice by honoring and practicing cooperation and mutual respect.

Education
Education is a lifelong process involving the shared exchange of knowledge and experience. Bountiful Cities is committed to supporting this shared exchange by role modeling, and by providing inspiring events, programming, and experiential education.

Sustainability
Sustainability is the equal balance between environmental health, social equity, and economic viability. Bountiful Cities is committed to sustainability through integrated food systems, food security, food production and job creation.



Happy New Year, Y'all.
xo
Jodi

Life Is Good: New Work by Severn Eaton Opening Reception Friday, January 22 at the Cake Shop!

Come check out new Ashevillian Severn Eaton's work hanging at the Cake Shop! Severn's work combines beautiful imagery with sometimes stark social commentary... oh, and there will be cake.
xo

Asheville, Your Bacon Cupcake Has Arrived.

Today, the first batch of our much-debated and long-anticipated bacon apple cupcakes came out of the kitchen and into the cupcake case! People have been asking. Alot. So here it is: Cinnamon Pound Cake! Bacon! Apples Fried in Bacon Grease! Cream Cheese Icing!
Come and get em.

All the Engaged Ladies...

Check out this post by a client about her experience with Short Street Cakes!
Thanks for the love!
xo

In other, totally unrelated news:

Here is a picture of my Mom and Dad, on their first anniversary, with a cake.


My dad will celebrate his 70th birthday this year, and my parents are going to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, and I love them both so much.

(note to brides: they say the cake tasted like crap, because it was covered in fondant and they probably got it at a chain supermarket grocery store. Just sayin.)

Twelfth Night and King Cakes for Asheville!

I am happy to announce that when all 8 million of you call this year and ask if we make King Cake for Mardi Gras, the answer will be yes! We made our first King Cakes this year for the Mystic Mountain Krewe Twelfth Night Celebration at MoDaddy's! Mystic Mountain is the largest Mardi Gras Krewe in Asheville, and the one that hosts the ever-growing parade. For the many new residents of Asheville that are here as a result of the Katrina diaspora, Mardi Gras represents more than the beginning of lent or an reason to party, it is a celebration of the enduring beauty of New Orleans culture. To that end, we would like you to know that our all-natural, made from scratch King Cakes are available now through February 16th. Our version is the traditional sweetened yeast dough, includes a sweet cream filling and a pecan praline filling, has the traditional baby hidden inside, is frosted with a white icing glaze, and topped with the Short Street signature hot pink Mardi Gras beads! That's what I'm talking about.
Ahem. Anyway, the party was lovely, and the babies chose Asheville's new King and Queen: Michael Parker and Laura Holland. Here's some pictures of the festivities (and the king cake) that I blatently stole off of the Asheville Citizen-Times website (thanks, y'all!):
The King Cake:

The Queen (center, in pink) and her court:

Last year's King (left) with the newly crowned one:

This is all just so mythological- don't get me started on the pagan traditions of king sacrifice and "what it all means." Just send me your pictures of twelfth night if you have them (I also will not get started on the six-month long saga of my camera repair, or lack thereof) and know that King Cakes are available with two days notice from the Cake Shop at the same prices as our layer cakes: $38 for a Large (which serves 25) or $22 for a Medium (which serves 15). King Cake is not available gluten-free or vegan. I mean, c'mon, really.

Twelfth Night!

(reposted from My Life In Cake's 2009 Twelfth Night Post)

"Now Christmas is past, Twelfth Night is the last
To the Old Year adieu, Great joy to the new."
School of the Seasons






Today is Twelfth Night, the last day of the 12 days of Christmas, and the day when the wise men finally got to see the little baby Jesus. There's a special place in my heart for the wise men, especially the one named Jasper, or "keeper of the treasure." But I digress. Like all good Christian holidays, Twelfth Night has its roots in pagan tradition, this one in the Roman winter solstice festival of Saturnalia. For more info on Twelfth Night, check out the entry in Waverly Fitzgerald's always excellent traditional calendar archives at School of the Seasons. Also, apparently, the Camden County, New Jersey Historical Society has a bitchin' Twelfth Night party, and they have an impressive amount of things to say about it in this very thorough article, "Twelfth Night, the Holiday That Time Forgot." Twelfth Night also is a traditional day to take down your Christmas tree and greenery (which I did) and bake a traditional Twelfth Night Cake (which I did not.) But, apparently the Twelfth Night Cake is a pretty big deal:



"In the days when Christmas was kept in the "good old-fashioned way," the Twelfth Night celebrations marked the last of the twelve days of feasting and jollification following the Festival itself. It was on Twelfth Night that some of the famous cake, in which was hidden a bean and a pea, was handed to every guest. The man and woman lucky enough to find these in their portions were acclaimed respectively "King of the Bean" and "Queen of the Pea," and presided over the revels which followed.

By the 17th and 18th centuries the cake itself was often made into elaborate and even fantastic shapes, such as ships and castles, with guns which could be fired. As late as in the 19th century confectioners' shops were lit up on Twelfth Night to display cakes."
(Text and picture courtesy of The Food Museum

Tonight, January 6, 2010, is the official Twelfth Night Celebration for Asheville! And guess who will be making the King Cakes this year? That's right, your friends here at Short Street Cakes. King Cakes will be available from now through Mardi Gras (February 16th). Much Love and Happy Revelling!
xo
jodi