Saturday, March 22

The 20 lb Coffee Cake

Me: Maybe we should get some coffee cake to go with that breakfast casserole.
Mom: Well, Sara Lee makes a pretty good one.
Me: Sara Lee?! Screw that! Let's get the 20 lb. Coffee Cake (aka Corner Bakery's Cinnamon Creme Cake)!!!
Mom: Oooooooo! I'd almost forgotten about that one!

And so our Easter brunch is born. Mom and I had decided on a breakfast casserole a couple of weeks ago. Since Mom is out of commission, we wanted to make the brunch as stress free as possible. Entertaining is not Mom's favorite thing. Well, she likes having family over but she hates spending the whole time in the kitchen preparing a meal. Who can blame her? I happen to feel the same way. I'd much rather make something ahead of time that just needs to be popped in a hot oven.

I tried to go to the farmer's market this morning for some fruit for our brunch but my plan was foiled when I was greeted by a rather long line of cars snaking around the block to get into the parking lot. I normally hit the farmer's market at noon. I like that time because most of the crowds have cleared out and the vendors are getting eager to dump goods. They're in a much better mood to make a deal. Dad dropped by around noon but was also greeted my the super long line of cars. Guess everyone had the same idea for Easter. The difference is that Dad has excellent parking karma. He has the ability to just pull up anywhere and find great parking and today was no different. He came home with some absolutely beautiful strawberries and blueberries. Yea!
Earlier this morning I headed for Corner Bakery to pick up the 20 lb coffee cake. Mom and I call it this because it is ludicrously heavy and dense. Yum! Although I found great parking at the bakery the coffee cakes were sold out. the horror, the horror. I was told more cakes would be available later in the afternoon. They took my name and number and told me to come back at 4:00. I came back at 4:00 on the nose and got anxious when the staff didn't seem to know what I was talking about. They looked a little nervous, then I noticed an equally freaked out woman standing near by. She too had been told to come back at 4:00 for a cake. Eventually the Manager came out and told us the cakes were literally just coming out of the oven. He was therefore unable to wrap them as usual. He had them placed in boxes for us instead. He then commented "Man, my Baker really went to town for you." I didn't know what he meant. He went on to say "Well, these are supposed to weigh 4.6 lbs but this one feels closer to 6 lbs. Here... feel..." He then handed me the hot cake in the box. "Nice!" I said. He then looked me in the eye and and held his look a beat longer than normal. My first thought was 'Maybe he's special needs.' Then I thought 'My God, is he flirting with me?'. I then thought 'For Christ's sake run! The last thing you need is to fall madly in love with a man with 24 hour access to the 20 lb Coffee Cake.'

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