cupcakes for a cause, season 2

45 minutes spent cracking hazelnuts.

For the second year, I donated four dozen vegan cupcakes to an auction for the Northwest Network of Bi, Trans, Lesbian, and Gay Survivors of Abuse. Last years cupcakes raised $120. I was just pleased to break a hundred. This year, I busted out the big spoons and, as evidenced above, spent a Saturday morning putting blood and sweat into a damn fine dozen of cupcakes.

Hazelnut Cupcakes with Hazelnut Mocha Mousse,
Ganache, and Toasted Hazelnuts

And it paid off; this years cupcakes brought $175 in the live auction. And apparently, another mysterious baker donated a matching set, although I'm not exactly sure how that worked. At any rate, it's still a screaming deal. Each cupcake comes to just above $3.60, hand delivered with aplomb. The hazelnut troops I baked for the auction were amazing (thanks to the reigning queen of vegandom.) So much so, that I had to make a second batch a week later. And I'd like to think that the flavor bursting from these little bombs was thanks to their made-from-scratch attitude. Not only were the hazelnuts cracked out of their shells instead of poured from a stale plastic bag, but they were toasted and then pulsed into meal for the cake (also, I'm frugal and didn't want to spend 10 dollars on a bag of hazelnut meal of which I needed only a fraction.) So, indeed they were worth every penny that went to the Northwest Network.

tides turning

Cake.

I'm in love with food. I could spend hours scrutinizing over the details of a menu. There is nothing I would rather spend my money on. There is nothing that I find so satisfying as feeding my friends and family.

I've felt more interested and involved in my food than ever. But as I'm buying raspberries out of season and spending $30 on a bottle of balsamic vinegar, there is a food crisis going on. While I'm baking a yellow cake, frosting it with vanilla buttercream, and feeding those untimely berries to my friends at a birthday party, others are eating cakes made from dirt and oil in hopes of evading the pangs of starvation while the price of rice skyrockets around the world. At my job, I talk to people who need to know which food banks are open, how to apply for food stamps, or where to go for a hot meal. And even when they can manage to receive public assistance, they can't stretch those food stamps far enough.

Access is everything. And because I have it, I want to help others to get it. I want to bake cakes; I want to plant a garden; I want to buy the freshest vegetables I can get my hands on. I want to stomp on the rules that keep everyone from having this access. Changing public policy around food security issues; changing the face of agriculture to re-harness power for small farmers; providing nutrition outreach to low-income communities where convenience stores are more prevalent than supermarkets with fresh foods.

There is much to be done.

All of this is to say that my relationship to food is evolving. I can't sit still in my own kitchen, my own garden, my own co-op. There is an incredible imbalance going on in the world and I won't feel right if I'm not trying to change that.