Cupcakes

Long-time reader Pablo sends me this article on a little-known menu item at Sprinkles: frosting shots.

"The shots come in mini-paper cups, and are pretty hefty — about 2-3 ounces. The frosting is, in fact, so thick that you can hold the shot upside without anything falling out— kinda like a Dairy Queen Blizzard.

It is the perfect size for frosting addicts..."

Yes, kinda like a Dairy Queen Blizzard.  Or the filling of a Twinkie.  Of course, no upper class person would be caught dead eating a Twinkie or coo'ing over a Dairy Queen Blizzard.

Sprinkles is the same evil mastermind behind the 24-Hour Cupcake Machine, which threatens the very fabric of Western Civilization.  Perhaps Project Cupcake Batter will get more respect if I model it on the efforts of José Bové, the French farmer who attacked the corporatist incursion of McDonald's into France and went to jail for actually destroying a McDonald's.  Lesson learned: I was being too nice.

I don't think people realize how deadly serious I am.  I have a mortal enemy for all eternity: gourmet cupcakes.  And it is a fight to the death.

Here's the final duel from Rob Roy.  I'll let you figure out which character represents me and which one represents gourmet cupcakes, lethal beneath its frippery.

"No quarter will be asked."

"Or given."

There are dark moments in history, when the forces of evil are on the march, laying waste to entire nations, leaving nothing but death, destruction, and desolation in their wake.  The silence of the dead and the wailing of the wounded suffocates the stillborn hope of the survivors.  I am, of course, referring to the unprovoked aggression of the Gourmet Cupcake Overlords Overladies against all health-loving, proud, self-respecting, and free peoples of the world.

And in such moments, rare individuals are called upon to say and do great things, unlikely heroes drafted by history.  Joe Queenan, author and humorist, has just written a truly inspirational call to arms, words that, when we prevail -- and we will prevail -- will be recited in classrooms by our children's grandchildren.  Below are a few choice quotations.

On historical legacy:

"Like the Macarena, Tofutti, the pedestrian scooter, the urban cowboy look of the early 1980s and America's brief, misguided obsession with Paris Hilton, the era when the cupcake was in the ascendant deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history. What a nightmare it has been."

On marriages that serve gourmet cupcakes at the wedding:

"My own belief is that a marriage that begins with the cupcake can only end with the Cheez Doodle, that a marriage conceived in frivolity will find its natural climax in tragedy."

On American Greatness:

"There is a subversive element at work here, too. The cupcake, to me, symbolizes compromise and acquiescence, a retreat from American greatness. The scaled-down cupcake—minuscule, inconsequential, silly—is a Carter-era bagatelle. It is frou-frou. It lacks muscle, sinew, cojones. It signifies that the cupcake eater, in the words of the immortal Warren Zevon, appreciates the best but is settling for less. Warren Zevon was never, ever seen eating a cupcake. He went to his death denouncing the cupcake. Or so I am told."

So poignant, so powerful.  I stand in awe, my resolve strengthened, committed to the death.  The full piece is here, worth reading now, and worth reading out loud on the 4th of July each year.  No longer an American Independence Day, but an Independence day for all humanity.  The day when humanity said No more.  The day when we declared our freedom.

OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY.

Thank you to Melissa for the link.

[start rant]  So Citibank has a new series of ads up in the NYC subway.  My roommate snapped this particularly ridiculous one for me.  Have a look:

This ad is not only stupid, but insultingly stupid.

First, you know my feelings on gourmet cupcakes.  But let's leave those aside for the moment.

Second, Citibank asks "What's your locavore story?" -- suggesting that eating a gourmet cupcake makes you a locavore.  Huh?  Please explain how eating a cupcake makes you a locavore.  I really doubt that the flour and sugar used to make that cupcake came from the area.  By Citibank's logic, that would mean that any food product that you buy  makes you a locavore, because you bought it in geographical proximity to your body.  It doesn't make any sense.

Third, in the small print on the lower right, it reads: "Eat local and bank local at our new flagship Citibank branch at 14th Street and Broadway."  Okay, so now Citibank will have you believe that Citibank is a local bank.  I'm as pro-free enterprise as they come (not that Citibank is a sterling example of free enterprise), but this is just over the top.

I suppose there is a sort of logic to the ad.  It's just as ridiculous to think that banking at Citibank is some sort of local action, as scarfing down over-priced gourmet cupcakes makes you a locavore.

[end rant]

You know my position on gourmet cupcakes: evil of the purest form.  Princess of Comfort Foods.  Harbinger of Civilizational (Tooth) Decay.  Which is why you may be surprised to hear me defend some cupcake makers.  Get this:

Welcome to the regulatory state.  Where you need a license to live.  What a great lesson to teach our children: don't bother.  Don't bother taking a risk, starting a little business, and learning how to turn a profit.  Pack up your enterprise, turn off your ingenuity, and go play some video games.

Shame on Michael Wolfensohn.  But Wolfensohn was just following the rules.  The rules are the problem.  A bad set of rules looks like this: everything is illegal, with the exception of complex specified licensed activities.  Good rules: everything is legal, with the exception of a few simple specified illegal activities.

You might say that this is an isolated incident.  It's not.  Burdensome regulations have shut down local farmers markets.  And if you want some horror stories that are happening all over America, visit the Institute for Justice.  IJ has done pro-bono work on economic liberty cases.

• Taalib-Din Abdul Uqdah v. District of Columbia.  The DC Board of Cosmetology (whatever that is for) tried to impose the 1938 Cosmetology Code on Uqdah's traditional African hair-braiding business.  Something tells me the 1938 bureaucrats who wrote the code didn't have African hair in mind.  It's a Medieval guild system.
• Kalish v. Milliken.  "Anyone in Virginia can do yoga, and anyone can teach yoga.  But, incredibly, it is illegal to teach people to teach yoga.  Yoga-teacher training is just the latest target of vocational school licensing laws that require countless entrepreneurs to ask the government’s permission before opening their mouths."
• Meadows v. Odom.  "Why would the Louisiana Horticulture Commission force a florist to either throw away seven perfectly fine floral displays or be fined $250?  Because would-be Baton Rouge florist Sandy Meadows, like so many other women, has been unable to pass a highly subjective State-mandated floral exam—an exam graded by existing florists in the state who have a vested interest in keeping her out of work."

The DC Board of Cosmetology?  The Louisiana Horticulture Commission?  These bureaucracies are parasites.  And the people who work there are parasites.  It's terrible that we have to even assert this, but people have a right to make an honest living.  

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

As for the 13-year old cupcake makers?  I disapprove of what you sell, but I will defend to the death your right to sell it.*

* Except for Sex and the City gourmet cupcakes.  If you sell those, you're on your own, boys.  I may even tip off the officer myself.

Update: One reader, Bob Ewing, actually works for IJ.  Check out his comments, and this excellent video on all the crazy licensing regulations out there. 

Starting in the 90s and accelerating in the past decade, gourmet cupcake stores have popped up everywhere.  Magnolia, Crumbs, Sprinkles.  Do we really need stores devoted entirely to cupcakes?  No, we don't.

Gourmet cupcakes are evil.  Not just bad, over-hyped, or unhealthy -- evil.  Here's why.

A cupcake is a miniature cake.  Cakes are for special occasions and celebrations: birthdays, anniversaries, and weddings.  We eat cake at times that have meaning and purpose.  Times when it is natural to want to feast and indulge.  Mama Rose, my lovely grandmother, always made a stunningly delicious angel food cake with coconut shavings on our birthdays.  It was out of the ordinary, and it signified and enhanced the greater meaning of our celebration (comfort food).

Enter the cupcake.  A mini-cake in a little cup.  Not only is the cupcake a physically smaller version of a cake, but it also requires less psychological justification to eat it. It's cake's casual cousin, and it can be eaten just for fun.  The very act of eating a cupcake can be the cause of the mini-celebration.  Rather than having a special occasion that merits indulgence (birthdays, weddings), the act of indulgence is the cause for celebration.  

And here's the kicker.  There used to be a stigma to eating cake on ordinary days.  And there still is, to some extent.  Few people go around eating cake on a regular basis.  Nice cakes are too big, too expensive, too luxurious.  The challenge that the cheap, standard grocery-store cupcakes always faced is that they were too cheap, too standard, too inexpensive.  They weren't special enough -- conscience and the last vestiges of social stigma could outweigh enjoyment.  But when gourmet cupcake makers fancied cupcakes up a bit and started charging $3.25 a pop, it provided that little excuse: "Now THIS is a special cupcake."  And eating this gourmet cupcake is a special occasion.  It's all backwards.  Evil, thy name is comfort food.

Comfort food is a mood-booster.  Kind of like a little drug.  Actually, exactly like a drug.  One day we will call comfort food by it's true name: a sugar addiction.  A manageable drug addiction that won't bankrupt you, won't put you out on the streets, and may not have noticeable health consequences for 20 years or more.  Kind of like smoking.  But it's a drug addiction nonetheless.  And just like cocaine is the upscale version of crack, gourmet cupcakes are a rich girl's Twinkie.

What happens if people don't get their fix?  Beware the man who gets in between a Manhattan woman and her gourmet cupcake.  Get your Sex and the City cupcakes here.