Really, what got her rolling again was the opportunity to throw down against the cupcake masters (or, if we're really going to be precise about our genders, cupcake mistresses) of San Francisco at the Iron Cupcake meetup (http://www.meetup.com/Iron-Cupcake-San-Francisco-Challenge/). The meetup is monthly, and has a theme ingredient - being October and all, this month's secret ingredient was beer. I thought that this represented a lot of interpretive opportunities for an East Bay entry. One could try a steam beer cupcake, representing Oakland's brewing past; a Singha and ginger cupcake, representing its immigrant present; or perhaps even an Old English cupcake delivered to the event in a Toyota fresh from a sideshow, representing what the rest of the world thinks of Oakland. Instead Lisa played a little with the rules, and delivered this:
That's right, it's root beer flavored cupcakes, with vanilla ice-cream frosting and a little straws to make a miniature pastry version of a root beer float. Now, being married to the baker, and a big fan of root beer, I'm more than a little biased, but these were awesome. Confirmation comes from my younger son, who had two time outs [or is it 'times out'? Note to self - reread collection of William Safire columns] this evening, both coming after he ran into the kitchen and shoved a cupcake into his mouth, knowing full well the consequences (for what it's worth, the consequences were 2 time outs and confiscation of his recycling flow charts, plus no truck related bedtime stories).
And it turns out that my larcenous son and I were not the only big fans:
