To Be or Not to Be a Professional Cake Artist?

To all the amazing at-home bakers who write and call asking for career advice, here's my schtick.

Triggered by reality food television, the world is in the midst of a confectionery renaissance, which is why increasingly more amateurs are considering a career as professional cake artist. With a new global demand for modern cakes, how convenient that you don’t need to own a brick and mortar establishment with a striped awning, pastry case full of goodies, and basket of artisan ficel to be recognized as a bakery anymore; Anyone can advertise cakes via the Internet. What's more, with the chat threads, vast catalogues of online recipes, and how-to YouTube videos on the net, baking enthusiasts of all skill levels have access to the kind of knowledge that in the past was restricted exclusively to pastry chefs, cooks, and apprentices. In this new millennium, amateurs are advancing more rapidly. Many who create fabulous cakes at home are being told by friends and relatives, “You should do that for a living!” So how does one go about the business of cakery?

2010 Gingerbread City Gala

250 pounds of raw materials went into my monster Wonka cookie house, which stood 4 feet wide and over 4 1/2 feet high. It's comprised of 100 pounds of gingerbread, 150 pounds of royal icing, a little gumpaste, a bunch of candy, and one month's worth of dedication and patience.

It’s Gingerbread House Season!

Oh yes that’s right, folks. Winter is choo-chooing this way. It's time for mittens and parkas and icicle-licking. In a few weeks, up go the wreaths, ol’ stockings, twinkly lights, candles, and spray-on window frost. Gee I wonder how many yuletide tchotchkes can be crammed onto one mantle....

Adventures in Paris Part Un – In Defense of the French

My tired but happy feet just returned to France, this time to pound the streets of Paris for one week in search of the flakiest croissant, quaintest rue of shops, most stunning gallery of modern art, most poignant sculpture, surest brushstrokes of oil on canvas, most sumptuous confection, ultimate in breathtaking architecture, and best scenic park bench on which to pause for a saucisson sandwich lunch. Before I unfold my discoveries, the itching expat in me would like to take a moment to enlighten whomever cares to read on as I defend France by

Debunking the top three French stereotypes that prevail in the USA

1)    The French are rude

2)  The French are snobs

3)  The French should have joined us in the Iraq war because they owed us one