It's For The Children

Many years ago I attended a baby shower for a co-worker. My boss at the time asked me to bring a cake and I excitedly baked a chocolate cake with caramel frosting.

Another co-worker brought a cake from Larry's Market and when she walked in all the ladies swooned. (By the way, Larry's Market WAS a fancy grocery store in Washington that went out of business. I believe it went out of business because their cakes weren't any good and they contained wax and hydrogenated oil.)

Nonetheless, my boss, who lived on Mercer Island (and we all know how I feel about Mercer Island), didn't even cut my cake! Instead she went on and on about the beautiful Larry's Market cake and "forgot" to cut mine resulting in me bringing it home. Whole. From Mercer Island back again to Capitol Hill.

I wasn't mad or hurt or even bothered by it. I was, however, confused.

Fast forward to last night.

Clay and I attended a fundraising auction for a school in Africa and the organizer of the event asked me to bake something for the dessert dash. (A dessert dash is when you and your table companions pledge a donation and the table with the highest total bid has the first chance to choose a dessert; then second highest, and so on.)

I baked a chocolate layer cake with a peppermint butter cream frosting and crushed peppermint candies on top. My dear friend Leora helped me with the frosting and the decorating. She used to own a bakery! (A bakery that was French and a whole lot better than Larry's Market. Her bakery also went out of business, but that's a whole different story that involves three babies and an ice cream maker.)

When the dessert dash started I was very interested in seeing who was going to select my cake and how much they were going to pay for it, so I watched carefully.

I happily spied a cute lady in high-top Converse make a furious "dash" for my cake. And then I noticed it was my old co-worker, Emily! Her table paid a whopping $550 for my cake. $550 that goes to The Children, but still... Sometimes it isn't about The Children, it's about Me and My Cake!

She was at the aforementioned baby shower years ago. She opted out of my cake back then but paid for it last night.

If I didn't like that lady so much I'd claim a sweet victory.