dispatches from the world's smallest, sweetest kitchen

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Yes, Chef.

You know what's awesome?  Adulthood best friends. 

Exhibit A, speaks for itself:

Exhibit B:
Michelle Williams brought BFF Busy Philipps as her date to most of the red carpet events during the 2012 awards season.  Ah-maz-ing.





I just learned that Philipps is a crazy-good baker. Observe:

I'm pretty sure that when Busy Philipps and Michelle Williams hang out, Busy bakes, and Michelle assists - this is a set-up I enjoyed for the last two years while my BFF lived in the same city as me, playing sous chef (she may have also had another job or something.... BORING).  She just moved back to the other side of the country, leaving me to wonder who will help me glue eyes onto cookies or traipse across the province, picking up random baking supplies for me.


The first big project I took on was to make the cupcakes for my friend Erin’s surprise 30th birthday part.  The plan was to make a giant cupcake-cake, with coordinating cupcakes.  Everything was supposed to be blue and silver, including the happy birthday message I was going to cut out of fondant and paint silver with luster dust……..but the night before the party I discovered that my alphabet fondant cutters were MIA and Rushika bussed across town to pick up a second set for me, helped me decorate, and then drive me into rural Quebec, while I cradled the cupcakes on my lap:

 With unbelievable patience, over the past two years she helped turn this:

Into this:
Seriously.  She worked hard.
She set up this year's Palentine's display while I was madly finishing cooking
She had nothing but good things to say about her misshapen birthday cake, which looked an awful lot like another caketastrophy of mine.



Also, an excellent taste-tester:

It was fitting that on her last days in town, we made cupcakes one last time - devil's food with buttercream.

My kitchen seems a little less sweet these days without my favourite sous chef here to help....