This Weekend in Cake: Paris of the South, Old School Cake School, and, of course, Weddings.

I love summer. I especially love this lush, deep part of the summer, when the Crape Myrtle is in bloom, the cicadas are loud and obnoxious, and the storms are fast and furious in the afternoon. I love it because its my birthday time (Thursday!) and because I love swimming and because things just seem a little lazier. More things to love about summer: we've got peaches and raspberries and blueberries and wineberries- and lovely friends visiting from far-flung places.



Why, yes, it is Elyse Manning, one of the cake ladies featured in my book, Cake Ladies, which comes out in a mere 3 months from now!

Here's some highlights of our hot summer weekend at the Cake Shop:

1) Paris of the South Flea Market!



I love this little flea market. You will too. Food truck heaven, thrifty paradise. Cheap tables, live music, good times. Oh, and we're there too, selling cupcakes!



Phillipe, the fawn that stole Elyse's heart:



And some more scenes from the flea:






Paris of the South Flea Market is open Saturdays and Sundays, down on Lyman Street by the river, just past the candle factory.


2) Weddings.

Check out these from Oh, Darling! Photography, taken at Claxton Farms.




Then there was this wedding cake at Brahma Ridge:



Which, I hear tell, held up even in the summer mid-day heat.


3) Cake School!

We had our second installment of Old School Cake School Classes at the Cake Shop today! I'm very proud of today's three graduates, who successfully baked a cake from scratch, start to finish, for the first time in their lives!



However, I think the best part of Cake School was the mimosas.



Next installment of Cake School is Sunday, August 14th.

Thanks to everyone for such a beautiful weekend, especially the magical and amazing Cake Shop Cake Ladies, like Hannah, who made this awesome cake:



And Anna, who makes the Cake Shop awesome. Love.

Pretty Pictures!

Lucky for us, you can't swing a cat in Asheville without hitting a photographer. Even luckier for us, they really like to photograph cake. Here's some recent work of our work that some artists have shared with me.


Marc Tickle:

Short Street Cakes baked Marc and his wife's wedding cake last year, and they live in the neighborhood and frequent the Cake Shop. When I was looking for contact information online for him, I found his website, and discovered that he makes these beautiful kaleidoscopes from hand-made glass, japanese paper, and mirrors! His work is truly beautiful and magical and I was happy to have stumbled upon it.


Tracie Acreman, Image Asheville:
Tracie is a sweet woman with a lovely accent (a Tasmanian accent, I came to find out) who created this great set of photographs at The Big Crafty, Asheville's bi-annual indie craft fair. Tracie's blog is full of vibrant images of events and people around town, including these pretty shots of Hannah's Sugar Two Shoes lollipops and good ole Short Street Cupcakes.




Asheville Indie Weddings Artist Collective:
The brainchild of Asheville wedding photographer Jennifer Callahan, Asheville Indie Weddings is described as "the first bridal blog to focus on unique local artists in our community, showcasing businesses brides might not come across otherwise." Jennifer recently conducted an interview with me and took some shots of Aunt Tissy's Italian Cream Cake:



Cade Bowman Photography:
Cade recently sent me this link to the wedding of Brandon and Jen that took place this past spring. His work is truly beautiful, and he got some great shots of the cake buffet a la Short Street:





And finally, thanks to Brandy Bourne, Co-Creator of the Big Crafty, for these shots of our fun day slinging (all-natural, scratch-made) cake and candy to the people and pilgrims of Asheville.



As I peruse all these images, I feel so very lucky to be a part of this community, and to be able to have a livelihood that brings me into contact, (and relationship) every single day with creative, powerful, imaginative, soulful, lovely, lovely people. I'm so grateful for all the places this path has taken me. Thanks everybody!

Springtime!

Herewith: Various up-and-coming goings-on in Asheville and environs.
AND: A Synopsis of the most beautiful nuptials of beloved friends C. Michael Frey and Timothy Campbell.

1) Cupcakes for Cures!

Short Street Cakes will be competing again this year to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The competition begins at 1pm this Saturday at the Grove Park Inn. While I will not divulge the details of our submission, I will tell you that we're baking this year in honor of our friends Patrick and Danielle Fitzgerald and their two sons. This month Pat celebrates 10 years in remission from Leukemia and a bone marrow transplant! This cupcake's for you, Pat, for being a warrior, and for you, Danielle, for being a warrior priestess. We love you and are so grateful for you in our lives.

[editor's note: We are proud to have won first place in the Retro Cupcake Category for our Banana Pudding Pound Cake. Winning!]

2) Old School Cake School Baking Classes at Short Street Cakes!

Short Street Cakes is now offering Cake School! This one-time, 2 1/2 hour class will take you step-by-step, hands-on to create your favorite cake from the Short Street Cakes menu. All tools and ingredients are provided by the Cake Shop, and you get to take your creation home with you! Classes take place on:

Wednesday, march 30th 5:30pm - 8pm
Sunday, April 3rd 3pm - 5:30pm
and Wednesday, April 6th at 5:30 pm to 8 pm

Registration is $75 per person per class, all tools and materials included. There are just a few slots left!
Call 505-4822 to register.


3) Palm Springs, baby.


Last weekend, I was lucky enough to attend, and bake the cake for, my dear friends' Michael and Tim's wedding in beautiful Palm Springs, California, at the Ace Hotel. The Ace Hotel is like what would happen if the Admiral took over a giant Howard Johnson's hotel from the 1950's: It's uber-mid-century-modern, with excellent food, comfy beds, really strong cocktails, and nobody seems to care if you go swimming at 1am in your underwear. But I digress.

Michael and I are from the same town in Georgia, though we didn't meet until 1997, after we had both moved to Athens, GA (actually, it was Michael who introduced me to Duncan that same year, but that's another story). We've been lucky to enjoy a friendship that has endured over several cross-country road trips and relocations, lots of tears and laughter, and much more growth and change.

Michael also has been gracious enough to create ALL of Short Street Cakes' designs- our logo, our menu, our business cards- and I am so grateful to him for his generousity and amazing talent. (oh, he also once did this live painting thing for Conan O'Brien:

Also, Michael is an amazing painter)

But, ANYHOO, Michael Frey has been intimately involved in making Short Street Cakes what it is today. (by the way, if you would like Michael to be intimately involved in YOUR graphic design project, go here) I am deeply grateful, and was so happy to have the opportunity to repay him in some small way: I made a cake, with the help of my friend Carrie-Welles. It was a Lemon Pound Cake marbled with Buttermilk White Cake, with a Lemon Curd filling and a White Chocolate Ganache (the White Chocolate was Michael's idea- I would never have thought of it, but it worked perfectly).
I flew to LA on Monday and spent some time visiting friends, and catching up on sleep. Michael and I went to the LA Flower Market to get succulents for the arrangements for the rehearsal dinner:


And then Carrie-Welles and I were off to Palm Springs to make the cake in the luxurious Palm Springs rental house that Tim and Michael's families were so gracious to provide for us.


Friends came from far and wide, and the ceremony was gorgeous. It was exactly what a wedding should be: a tribute and a celebration to each one as an individual, and a blessing on their lives together, with their friends and family there to bear witness.




Dinner and dancing were magical, and then there was the cake:





And my date for the evening. Thanks, CW! Girlfriend knows how to throw down for cake, and for friends.


I feel blessed to have been a part of this beautiful ritual.

4) Gratitude.
And, I feel so grateful to Duncan for being such an awesome dad that I have the space in my life to journey to distant lands for fun and profit. I also want to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to Emilou, Lucy, Hannah, Shannon, Anna, and Adam at the Cake Shop for creating the space for me to go on this adventure: not only did I come home to a beautifully clean, organized, happy, and well-run Cake Shop, but I came home to this:

And it reminds me again that I adamantly refuse to buy in to the cynical belief that work and community relationships, even within a variety of structures of leadership, cannot be loving, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial. But again, I digress. Thank you, Thank you, thank you.

To Life and to Love,

Jodi

PS: Thank you to Dawn Campbell and Charlotte Frey for some of the images used in this post.

PPS: Also, there were these strange and beautiful windmill farms all over the place:


And the day after the wedding I got to go on a margarita-soaked picnic to Joshua Tree with Michael's entire family. (it was really cold)


Post Script: Here is a video Michael made of the "photo booth" that was set up at the wedding. Which I, obviously, mistook for a "kissing booth." Because I love love.
xo

This Weekend's Weddings!

It's so good to be back in the shop, rocking wedding season like a champ. Here's some pictures of this weekend's weddings: all FOUR of them! Correction: I neglected to take pictures at Tashi and Meredith's beautiful gathering, because I was so happy I forgot to.

First, I was all like, Imma bring this cake to Lake Eden.


Then, I was like, Here you go, Greenville! Here's a vegan Peach Cake for ya!
(I think its still pretty even though I had to take the pictures in the walk-in cooler at the Poinsett Hotel)


And then, well- actually this wedding was the first of the day- these cupcakes went to a lovely mountaintop wedding in Old Fort.



And then we feasted at Tashi and Meredith's Wedding! Big love, Asheville (and evirons) xo!

Fresh Cake, Fresh Camera!

Here are some photos taken with my (by which I mean, their) NEW CAMERA from Lark Books, for use during the production of my forthcoming book on Southern Cake Ladies! For real, this camera does not take a bad picture. Observe:


Thursday's Wedding Cake.


Friday's Wedding Cake.


More Friday Cake.


My new friend Ashley Adams English. (check out her blog and her newly published books on Chicken Keeping and Canning and Preserving! However, don't buy Ashley's books online if you can help it, buy them at a local bookseller, like Malaprops)


My old friend Nathanael Markham. We've been friends for 8 years and I love him so much. I'm so lucky to work with these two, and all the other badasses that work at the Cake Shop.

This camera also takes video. What this means is that we now have the capacity to make videos of ourselves dancing to Lady Gaga while baking, which I'm really excited about.
xo