Three Newsletters of Note.

Hey Friends, I would like to spread the word about three newsletters this week I find to be interesting:
1)Short Street Cakes- our sort-of monthly email newsletter, including info on Summer Old School Cake School and other upcoming events;
2)Slow Food Asheville, with a really interesting article about the recent Indigenous Terra Madre Summit in Jokkmokk, Sweden: "Delegates shared their stories about keeping food traditions alive and fighting to maintain rights to self determination, land, and water. Observers, like me, learned how they can be allies to indigenous communities as they (like many of us) seek to decolonize their food traditions and ensure their food cultures are taken up by the next generations." Word.
3)Community Food Security Coalition. This email is chock full of really dense and really relevant food policy information at the federal level. Just in case you are a big dork like me and you enjoy reading stuff like that.

Autumn News from Short Street Cakes!

Click here to read our Autumn Newsletter, which is full of useful information such as: Winter Hours, Halloween Cupcakes, Kitchen Space for Rent, and three new books involving Short Street Cakes!

We thank you and we love you.

Thank you, Citizen Times, for profiling "The Woman Behind Short Street Cakes!"

This article appeared in the living section of Sunday's Asheville Citizen-Times. I feel honored to share my story, and I know that we each have a beautiful story to tell.

Click to view the full article:

"From scratch, with love: The woman behind Asheville's Short Street Cakes cooks up community with her creations" by Barbara Blake

Short Street Cakes in the News

Check out the Mountain Xpress' roundup of local businesses featuring dishes with bacon here, and below I'm reposting the Asheville Citizen-Times Young Professional of the Week Profile (featuring yours truly). We're psyched for all the great media coverage we've received!


Young Professional Profile: Jodi Rhoden of Short Street Cakes

Name:
Jodi Rhoden

Age:
33

Residence:
Asheville.

What I do at work:
I am the owner of Short Street Cakes in West Asheville, which started in my home four years ago. I bake Southern-style, all-natural birthday cakes, wedding cakes and cupcakes.

What I do on my time:
I am Mom to a totally rad 4-year-old boy, so I spend lots of time doing laundry and talking about outer space and dinosaurs. I commit my community time to serving on the board of The Bountiful Cities Project, which works to promote food security and urban agriculture in Asheville. I'm also interested in documenting and preserving food traditions of the region.

Why I work and live in the Asheville area:
I moved here from Georgia with a degree in social work 10 years ago, hoping to be part of the nonprofit world here. I was soon too busy with grassroots community work and mostly waited tables to subsidize that work. As a mom, I discovered that the best way to make a livelihood here is to create your own way, and I love and appreciate the sense of loyalty that the Asheville community has to its mom-and-pop businesses.

My WNC secret:
I love Marco's pizzeria with all my heart. Not only do they make a great pie, but when I was a waitress there with a baby at home and a fledgling business, they were my strongest support network. I also love and appreciate Mountain BizWorks and the YWCA for their help and support along the way.

I'd love to have lunch with:
I would have loved the opportunity to have lunch with the late, great Edna Lewis, one of my culinary heroes. Actually, I would have loved the opportunity to make
lunch with Edna Lewis.

Blackberry or iPhone?
Face to face.

Short Street Cakes on Scene on 7!

Last night on channel 7 (WSPA Greenville) Short Street Cakes and the bacon cupcake were featured on the entertainment show "Scene on 7!" We were really excited that host Jamarcus Gaston did such a great job expressing the style and food philosophy of the Cake Shop! And Bacon Cupcakes are available every Friday at the Cake Shop. Thanks, Jamarcus!

Newsletters and New Cake!

First, allow me to introduce you to today's newest flavor:
Vegan. Vanilla. Wineberry. Cupcakes.
Featuring local, wildcrafted Blue Ridge Wineberries (a species of raspberry) from Braden and Mindy's Good Times Farm.

And secondly, let me direct your attention to the newly published Summer Newsletter from Short Street Cakes: This newsletter is chock full of pictures, updates, and info about cake, community, collaborations and connections. Click here to view the newsletter as a webpage, or sign up to receive our newsletters in your email inbox by using the sidebar on the right hand side of your screen.
Love!

My Life In Cake on WYFF News 4!

I was on TV at 7 this morning in Greenville!
It was quite an adventure.

Asheville Citizen-Times Hearts Short Street Cakes

Check out the online photo gallery of Short Street Cakes! Published in conjunction with the article coming out tomorrow morning. Yay for awesome photographers and journalists who love cupcakes!
All images by Erin Brethauer (who's very very sweet) and courtesy Asheville Citizen Times (who I'm beginning to like more and more...) And here is a link to the sweet article by the even sweeter Carol Motsinger.

6th Annual Grassroots Revival

Heads up:
The Bountiful Cities Project is hosting the 6th Annual Grassroots Revival this Saturday, December 13th, from 4-10pm. The event will take place at Pearson Garden, on Pearson Street in Montford. The Grassroots Revival is an opportunity for grassroots activists and organizations for social change to network about their projects, and enjoy one another's company!

The Revival will feature a delectable potluck supper followed by a sharing circle, in which everyone will have the opportunity to share their work with the group. Please come down to share, eat, drink and be merry with fellow activists. Re-charge your batteries and remember to bring a dish!

About Bountiful Cities:

Our Mission

To create, on urban land, beautiful community spaces that produce
food in abundance and foster a learning environment for social
justice and sustainability.
Our Vision

The vision of Bountiful Cities Project is to enliven and
empower self-reliance, cooperation, and a stronger
sense of community through providing an opportunity
to grow, harvest and eat fresh, local produce.

We envision community spaces that serve as models
for sustainability through organic food production,
water conservation, ecological building, community
celebration, and cooperative economics.

This vision is becoming a reality at our two flagship gardens:
a permaculture-based vegetable garden on Pearson Drive
in Montford, and the Dr. George Washington Carver Edible Park
at Stevens Lee Community Center- which is home to over
30 varieties of fruit trees and an under story of berries
and medicinal herbs.

For more information go to www.bountifulcitiesproject.org.

.

Short Street Cakes in Verve Magazine!

Check out the brand new Nov/Dec issue of Verve Magazine- there's a sweet article on cupcakes on pages 46 and 47, featuring me, Short Street Cakes, and my Frigidaire Flair. Here's an exerpt:

"Rhoden of Short Street Cakes says the cupcake, compared to a cake, has a favorable moist-to-crunchy ratio that could help explain its ascending status in the public’s hearts and mouths. “They bake differently,” she says. “You get a little cake and a lot of crust. People like crust. And you get a lot of icing and a lot of cake in each bite.” And then there are the practical reasons behind the cupcake’s popularity. You don’t need a plate or a fork to eat one. “It’s a portable passion,” says Corley. Self-indulgent self-restraint may be the last word on the subject. Unless it’s been a really bad day, says Andrea McMullen, “one single person can’t eat a whole cake.”

ALT-CUPCAKE: Jodi Rhoden bakes her cupcakes in a retro 1963 Frigidaire Flair oven and makes sugar-free, gluten-free and vegan versions, along with traditional recipes. Rhoden represents the indie end of the Asheville cupcake spectrum, baking her cakes and cupcakes to order out of her home on a 1963 Frigidaire Flair oven given to her by an elderly neighbor. Her products start with local apples, organic local eggs, locally milled organic flour and organic spices. For Rhoden, an activist and former social worker, the choices are not just about the flavor. “It’s about contributing to the local economy and creating a new business model,” she says. “I want to bring other producers along with me.”

Short Street’s menu features homey recipes like carrot spice cake as well as decadent ones such as triple-chocolate ganache. Rhoden makes sugar-free and gluten-free versions of her cupcakes and has vegan recipes as well. “Vegan cooking is a whole different thing,” she says. “You can’t just take a regular recipe and ‘veganize’ it.” Her standard chocolate cake recipe is vegan because it tastes more chocolatey (dairy products mask the taste of the cocoa).

Rhoden, whose cupcakes were featured in Brides magazine earlier this year, emphasizes taste over fancy appearance, foregoing elaborately drawn icing figures in favor of simple swirls or accent flowers grown in her backyard. Her food-coloring-free icing and cake recipes are “old school Southern” with a different feel from the European tradition of desserts. Her bridal clients tend to be very laid back. “I tell them, if you want your cake to look like a piece of Wedgwood china, I’m not your gal,” she says."

Read the whole article here. Article and image copyright Verve Magazine, article by Joanne O'Sullivan, Photo by Rimas Zailskas. Thanks, Yall!

Short Street Cakes on Pies

In case you missed it in the Citizen-Times on Wednesday, (I dunno, maybe due to the fact that the front page news was something about a historical event of international import or something), there was a sweet little article about pies, along with a few recipes from the pie department at Short Street Cakes. Click here to read the article, and here are some of the recipes:

Fall Pies using WNC Local Produce
By: Jodi Rhoden, Owner, Short Street Cakes, Asheville, NC

Pie Crust Recipe (adapted from “The Gift of Southern Cooking” by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock)

1 ½ c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1 t. salt
½ t. sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons lard (substitute margarine if you cannot find non-hydrogenated lard)
4-6 tablespoons ice water

Place flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Whisk to combine. Cut chilled butter and lard into pieces and scatter on top of the flour mixture. Cut fats into flour using a pastry cutter or two knives, until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle ice water on mixture, one tablespoon at a time, and gently fluff the mixture until one large dough mass forms. Knead gently, 3 or 4 times. Flatten dough into a disk and wrap well with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight or for at least 2 hours.

Roll out dough and line an 8 or 9 inch pie plate.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Fill with one of the following pie fillings. When you place the pie in the oven, reduce heat to 375.

Apple Custard Pie with Crumb Topping (Recipe by Jodi Rhoden):
A great WNC apple for this pie is Mutzu. Its firm, like a Granny Smith, but sweet like a Golden Delicious.

Combine, one ingredient at a time:
½ cup brown sugar
2 T. flour
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 egg

Add:
2 cups diced apple pieces

Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup butter
Combine ingredients with fingers and sprinkle over pie filling. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, or until the pie becomes slightly firm in the center.

Pumpkin Pie from Scratch (Recipe by Jodi Rhoden):
Choose a small, fleshy pie pumpkin from a local WNC grower (find them at one of the many tailgate markets in the area, or the Farmers Market on Brevard Road). Slice pumpkin in half from top to bottom. Scrape out seeds and stringy pulp, and roast the seeds! Place pumpkin halves, cut side down, on a baking sheet and bake until soft.
Let cool, then scrape out the pulp.
Mash the pulp in a bowl with a potato masher.
Place pulp in a strainer, and strain over a bowl for 2 hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.
Some bakers puree the pulp at this point, but I think its optional.

Now, for the recipe:
Combine, one ingredient at a time:
1 ½ c. pumpkin
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 T cinnamon
½ t. ginger
¼ t. nutmeg
½ t. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 425. Pour into prepared pie crust. Turn down oven to 375 and bake at 375 until the sides are firm but the center is slightly jiggly.






I know, I know, its Short Street Cakes, not Short Street Pies. But I can't help it. When the weather turns and the leaves fall, I'm all about some pie.

Short Street Cakes on Cupcakes Take the Cake!

Thanks to the awesome blog Cupcakes Take the Cake! They blogged about Short Street Cakes today.

Cupcakes In the News.

Obviously, when you are a journalist traveling in the Middle East, you need a little internationally themed cupcake break every once in a while. These cupcakes were made for the press following Obama in Jordan. (who made them? did they taste good? if anybody knows, lemme know) (x-posted from Cupcakes Take the Cake & The Black Snob)

Short Street Cakes Wins Cupcake Contest!

I feel like I just won the lottery! Or an Oscar! I'm so excited! I'd like to thank my Mom for teaching me how to bake.
I won the cupcake challenge on local blog Chasing the Bread Truck!
And I just figured out how to do that linky-anchor thing.

Greenlife Prices

So I went up one dollar on the price I sell my 6" cakes to Greenlife Grocery. And then they went up five dollars on their markup to $15.99! After a week of worrying and fretting about the new price of my cakes, I had this brilliant and novel idea to ASK SOMEONE about it. So I did, and the helpful man with whom I spoke whipped out a calculator and said, "um, no, that's not right. They should be $13.89." And so they are. So if any of yall have been by greenlife lately, and went to buy your vegan chocolate cake, and found it to be highly expensive, I am pleased to announce that it is now only moderately expensive.
xo
jodi

This week in cake, and Candlemas

its been a busy week in cake. I threw my back out sometime last week, and couldn't breathe without feeling like someone was stabbing me in the back for days. This despite a delightful last minute escape to Hot Springs with some lovelee ladies and yoga with kaoverii. But then i got an adjustment from Cloud 9 chiropractic, and damn, it was like a miracle! all this is to say, you don't know what you got til its gone- i was so grateful to have my back back.
I had alot of orders over the weekend, and some wedding tastings. One of the highlights was making 5 dozen cupcakes with sun designs for the ribbon cutting for NC's largest solar power system- Deltec homes built it, and it means that they are generating as much energy as they are using at their Asheville factory. Pretty f-in cool.
OK, so this is the part of the blog where i reveal myself to be the witchy woman that i am: the new moon in january. its a powerful thing. the new moon is the time to plant seeds of intention that you want to grow in the coming cycle (think: farmers almanac, but with ideas and feelings instead of actual plants). So I put some stuff out there, especially the dream of finding a space in town for my bakery. The cool thing about the new year new moon is that you are effecting many cycles: the short-term lunar cycle (ie, your seeds bear fruit at the full moon), but also the 6-month cycle (when the moon is new again in the same sign, in this case, capricorn) and in addition, you are planting seeds for the whole new year. so, again, let me say how happy i am that it it 2008.

One of the things I love about cake is its symbolic use in seasonal celebration. Somewhere along the way I remember reading that the first cakes were actually triangle-shaped offerings to the goddess of somewhere-long-ago meant to symbolize the yoni. Now that's my kinda cake. Also, the word "lady" originally meant "baker." So one of my hopes with this blog is to give ideas and suggestions on how to use cake to celebrate the cycles of life. And first off is: Imbolc! also know as Candlemas, Groundhog day, and the feast of St. Brigid, "February 2 is one of the great cross-quarter days which make up the wheel of the year. It falls midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and in many traditions is considered the beginning of spring." "Certian foods are traditional for Candlemas, including crepes, pancakes and cakes, all grain-based foods. Pancakes and crepes are considered symbols of the sun because of thier round shape and golden color." (Waverly Fitzgerald, www.schooloftheseasons.com) This reminded me of the solar-panel party cupcakes I made...see next post for a picture.
Next holiday recipe i will post, as per miss "hottdish" elyse's request, will be king cake for mardi gras, along with some lore. even though, being a yeasted dough, is not what we now consider to be "cake." But I'm JUST THAT CRAZY. Speaking of lore, I consider recipes to be folklore, meant to be passed around hither and thither. i just don't have time to transcribe one right now. but soon. I think that's all for now. xo jodi

Brides Magazine!

I'm so happy to announce that Short Street Cakes is featured in the February/March issue of Brides magazine! Its on newsstands now. Its on page 182 in an article called "Brides Finds" about environmentally sustainable options for wedding vendors. So much thanks goes to my friend Kristen Walsh, who works for Brides, and got my name into the right hands to get into the magazine. Despite an almost disastrous journey of 24 cupcakes being shipped overnight to NYC, the pictures and blurb made the cut! What an amazing thing. Thanks to Kristen, and all the other angels and fairies that made it happen.