Tuesday 1 November 2011

Book 7 Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe

Not a lot has been happening recently as I have hurt my back.  I am no longer at the hanging onto the furniture and walls in order to walk from room to room stage. I do have a hot water bottle permanently attached to my back but it is getting better (pause for much wood to be touched here). I can just about get my tights and shoes on provided I have taken enough painkillers beforehand.  And I can sit at the computer for short periods of time.   I am however feeling very sorry for myself so on Saturday afternoon  I went over to the A's for a bit of company and to sit with MG while TJ and AJ went to a quiz in the evening.  I thought I might as well sit on their hard chairs with my cushion and hot water bottle as sit on mine and it meant MG and I got a chance to watch Strictly Come Dancing together which was fun. MG favours Jason and Kristina to win while my choice is the lovely Harry.  And isn't Russell Grant so much fun.  He is enjoying himself so much, it's quite infectious. 

So to take my mind off my sorrows while waiting to be collected I decided to make a Sticky Ginger Cake to give them.  Why, you might well be asking, would I attempt cake making considering getting dressed is a little on the challenging side but from the recipe it seemed so easy as it could all be done in stages in the food processor.   However, it's amazing how heavy a 500g bag of flour weighs with a bad back and just how much bending and stretching is involved  getting the ingredients out of cupboards and the fridge, actions I never really thought about before.   I had to keep sitting down inbetween ingredient whizzes and the fact I would have to bend to get the cake in and out of  the oven hadn't even occurred to me!!   Mental note - need to work on forward planning.  So it took me ages.  However, eventually a slightly burnt cake was taken from the oven and I had time to lay down in a darkened room before collection by TJ.   The cake was well received and quite delicious, once the burnt bits had been cut off.  However I'm not going to attempt any more baking until I am as mobile as I can be considering I'm me, so that just leaves lots of reading to do which brings me nicely to book 7.

On the face of it Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny Colgan is classic chick lit fare.  Thirty-one year old Issy gets made redundant and uses her redundancy package and baking skills to start her own cafe selling cupcakes and coffee.  Along the way she loses cretin of a  boyfriend and finds Mr Right, brings together disparate groups of people (especially the women who work for her who also find love along the way), sees off a takeover bid from nasty grasping people  and cafe becomes a roaring success.  A few tears along the way but smiley happy ending with all loose ends tied up.  Not my sort of thing at all. 

So, why did I love it so much and not want it to end.  It could be the identification with Issy and the redundancy. Having been there, done that, (actually still doing it)  I know how it feels however,  apart from that,  our circumstances are very different. Or, it could well be the cake.  After all I bought it purely because of the title and there is much, much cake in this book.  There are lots of cake recipes and I want to try them all.  I love cake.  I love making cakes.  I love eating cakes almost as much as I like making them.  I love giving people cakes and seeing them smile and I believe most things seem better after tea and cake (or alcohol and cake) and this is the essence of the book - cake, whether it was sold in the cafe or given as a gift, made everything better for everyone (except the cretin who got his just desserts in a wonderful way).   And nobody got fat. 

aaand   The Caked Crusader is given an honourable mention and has some pages of her own at the back - that excited me - I read her blog and she has made a comment on mine - fame at last. Cake and fame.  Glorious.  I highly recommend it to all persons who understand the value of cake.