Ode to a cupcake

And not just any cupcake--it has to be red velvet. I'm a very late convert to it. My daughters have been into red velvets, oh, since five years ago, maybe more. I guess I was put off by the color and the cloying richness. It made me think of a vamp actress. Can't explain the association.

That was until Martin Masadao introduced me to his friend Odette Mills, fellow Baguio resident who also played a cameo role (but with spoken lines) in Martin's short film "Kitoman (Red Rice)." You see, the word "red" makes an appearance again. Odette brought a sample of her red velvet cheesecake in a neat box that seemed to have been folded by an origami master. I was hooked.

The taste was never replicated, and I refused to touch any other red velvet cookie, cake or cupcake. Not until I could save up for a dozen of Odette's babies. I raved about it to my husband and my granddaughter; the latter was the most excited. Rolly thought it was a frivolous expense because for a lesser price, we could get a box of assorted JCo Donuts (we both like the Alcapone).

The little vamps come in this dainty box with Odette's contact details. Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Odette delivered the goods at Rolly's office two afternoons ago. It was an interminable wait for Kai and myself as we counted the hours until Rolly arrived in time for dinner. Well, the rest is, as they say, history and satisfied cravings.

P.S. If I use Cupcakes by Sonja as my standard, Odette's CakeBaby products are up to par.

We had one with the cream cheese butter frosting. Odette's red velvet cupcakes come also with lemon buttercream frosting. She deliberately makes the cake part not too sweet so the consumer doesn't get umay (hard to translate that Filipino term). Or the consumer doesn't easily tire of it.

One rugrat in the background about to demolish a cupcake.

Come Saturday Morning

It’s one of my favorite songs from the decade of the seventies. It was the theme music of the movie A Sterile Cuckoo. It was the theme playing in my head when I had a Saturday well-spent (spent in the literal sense) with my sisters, daughters and niece at this serendipitously named mall-paseo Serendra at The Fort, Taguig City.

It makes me wonder why I have to have an official reason presented to my husband (in this case, I was due for blood chem and checkup with my neurologist and internist at the Medical City)so I could visit family members in Pasig City. I’ve narrowed the two places I visit with some customer loyalty at Serendra: Fully Booked and Cupcakes by Sonja.

I promised by niece Bianca, 6, that I would buy her anything she liked as her prize for turning in outstanding grades in her kinder class at Assumption College Antipolo City. We combed the entire children’s books section. It was my daughter Ida who found her beloved children’s literature characters Madeline and Eloise, and since she’s a kinder teacher and building up her own library, I didn’t hesitate in getting her two titles: Mad About Madeline—The Complete Tales by Ludwig Bemelmans and Eloise in Moscow by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hillary Knight.

Bianca is a bit like Eloise in that she is surrounded mainly by grownups, except when she’s in school. She can be a smart ass, but as my sister Gigi said, she is not greedy. All of us wanted to buy her something for her remarkable academic performance, but she knew she couldn’t pick anything she fancied. She had to settle for one item from each of us.

So down we went to the art supply section (increasingly a rare section in other stores—there are just not enough quality stuff). She settled for glitter glue and Lyra watercolor pencils which I later showed her how to manipulate.

All that going up and down the multi-level bookstore made us hungry. Consensus for best pick-me-up place was Cupcakes by Sonja where sister Suzy and I chose our favorite lemon-frosted cupcake and Ida had a pistachio cupcake with strawberries and cream. My older girl gave me P500 (which is my affirmation that I must’ve been a good mother because the girls don’t mind giving their jobless mother some pin money).

Somebody had the bright idea of returning to Fully Booked. Big mistake (spending wise) because I ended up charging almost more than a thousand pesos worth of books on Suzy’s credit card.

I shall be armchair traveling for the next couple of weeks with Sarah Turnbull’s Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris, Caroline Seller Manzo’s Casa Nostra: A Home in Italy and Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West.

Ida and I are shown perusing our purchases. Photo by KIMI FERNANDEZ