The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow

Well, at least I hope it does.....Two of my most frequent customers and getting married and I hope the sky will clear for them. After a week of glorious weather here in Paris, I don't think it got above 60 degrees today and it feels more like October than the end of June!

T & L are a really cute couple who booked their wedding order with me back in November. They have been huge fans and I thank them for their support! (One of the kindest compliments I ever had was on their return from London when they told me they hadn't tasted a single cupcake that even came close to mine. Really? Aw shucks!).



The colors of their wedding are lavender, light green, pink and cornflower blue. They were tremendous to work with -- sending me everything from a Powerpoint presentation that showed some images for what they had in mind, to going through my cupcake photos and picking ones that were in-line with their tastes. They even went so far as to order the cupcake liners (originally they found an Etsy supplier in California but decided later on to go with a plain silver foil which was easily found in the UK). I only wish every wedding client could be so inspired.



The assortment of cupcakes they chose for the wedding are: Caramel Dolce (vanilla bean cake with caramel frosting which I tinted light green and added handmade gumpaste flowers and sprinkles), Vanilla Lovers (vanilla bean cake and buttercream which I topped with a single pink pearl dragee), Chocolate Squared (chocolate cake and bttercream which also got handmade gumpaste flowers and pearl and silver dragees),



Cookies n Cream (these aren't pretty so I covered them in discs made of gumpaste which I embossed with butterflies), Broadway Blueberry Swirl (lightly scented lemon cakes studded with blueberries and topped with a swirled blueberry and lemon buttercream), Berry Berry Good (vanilla cakes with strawberry buttercream and handmade gumpaste flowers) and California Dreaming (lemon cakes with pistachio buttercream).



The last piece was the giant cupcake which they decided upon just a few weeks ago. I amde a lemon cake with a layer of strawberry buttercream in the center and then covered it with vanilla bean buttercream and handmade gumpaste flowers.



To T & L, I wish you nothing but sunshine in your lives, for tomorrow and forever. My sincerest congratulations to you, and enjoy tomorrow (and the cupcakes)! Okay gotta go translate this into French so I can leave the same message for them where they can read it! :)

If On A Winter's Night...

My son turns 7 today. Gulp! I really don't know where the time has gone. As a parent of a 16 year-old remarked to me recently, with young kids, when you are in the thick of it, every minute feels like a lifetime and then it's all over before you even have time to blink. So true!



I can still recall the night before he was born. I awoke around 2AM feeling something was just not quite right, and my husband and I sheepishly decided to head to the hospital, slightly embarrassed in the belief that they would take one quick look at me and say, "false alarm: go home." A light snow had just fallen and the city was basked in a magical white glow. We lived only two blocks from the hospital and so made the journey on foot. As we passed the Corner Bistro on Jane Street, we could see and hear the people inside toasting with good cheer through the fogged up windows.

We arrived at the hospital to find they were fully booked in the maternity ward and so left us to get comfortable in a triage room that they turned into a makeshift lodging. No easy task for my husband to fold his impossibly large 6 foot 3 frame into the small collapsible metal chair they left for him! No sooner had we settled in did the obstetrician on-duty return with the news that we would be checked in -- we were going to be having a baby that day. I can't recall ever being so frightened in my entire life. No matter the fact that we had 9+ months to plan for this moment, knowing that we would soon be entrusted to a small, helpless baby terrified me to my core. Needless to say his journey into the world was a long one (I was in labor for over 15 hours) so by the time he finally appeared, he was a welcome sight to us tired, weary parents.



And now here we are just a few years later. That moody, helpless, never wanting to sleep baby has turned into an over-active, inquisitive, funny, charming and still moody 7 year-old. He is entering the Age of Reason as they say and I just hope that means an end to the constant "betises."



For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know that we spent the week of New Year's Eve in London. It was a fabulous trip - my son is just the right age for it (though my 2 year-old held her own too). London is a great city for kids and we didn't waste a day visiting the London Transport Museum, The Natural History Museum, the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park and a tour on one of the famous double-decker buses amongst other attractions (like Primrose Bakery - yummy! Okay that one was for me!). My son delighted in the dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum, including the living, breathing and snarling animatronic T-Rex. I was inspired by our visit to make my boy a dinosaur cake using my new giant cupcake tin (also purchased in London). This is one of his favorites: a chocolate cake with clementine buttercream at the base and chocolate-clementine buttercream on top, decorated with home-made gumpaste dinosaurs in party hats.



So, glass held high - Happy Birthday to You, my Poussin (I think I will likely have to stop calling him that soon as I'd imagine it's gonna start to be an embarrassment in front of his friends). I love you!! You have given your father and I more joy than you could ever imagine, and lots of laughs as well as grey hairs along the way!

PS Thanks to www.beaucoupdimages.com for the above picture of the snow scene in New York. And if you don't know it, the title of this post refers to a work of fiction by Italo Calvino, one of my favorite books, and a rather fitting title for my winter baby.