Thursday, February 3, 2011

Birthday Cake Saga - How Not To Take Pictures

Yeah... I'm almost done with this cake thing.  I had the last piece of it last night.

On the other hand, on Sunday, Kevin's birthday I got a phone call.

David is a friend.  We met about 25 years ago in Key West.  I went home, he moved in there and does Property Management as well as a long list of other odd jobs. Basically any friend of 25 years is one worth keeping so when he called with a simple request I said I'd do it.

He thought we should take a picture of the cake with Kevin and I. 

Pretty basic huh?  Still life?   Nope.

Step one.  Get Kevin out of bed.  It's his birthday, and he wanted to lay in.  Some time around, oh say 11AM, he finally got out of bed and I filled him in on the back story.  That morning I had finished icing the cake, and was just going to decorate it as you see in the picture.  David called with the picture request so go get cleaned up and presentable.  

Step two.  Get everyone presentable.   I got into the shower, and told Kevin it was his turn.  I busied myself finishing the piping on the cake with the prefab icing in a can.  It came with a set of four little nozzles and that way I wouldn't have to figure out where an Icing Bag was with tips to decorate the thing.  The letters were all there and in place, I just wanted to put a ring of little snowy looking things around the edge. 

Step three.  Have Lunch.  Kevin was still on his perch playing on facebook, looking out the door at the dog across the street that is basically tied to a fence all day barking, and some of the other things that go on in this quirky neighborhood.

Step four.  Kevin has finally gotten into the shower.  I begin to do the set up for the picture.  Funny how when you have a cake on a room divider that is waist high you find out how your camera equipment basically ... falls short.  The cake was about 4 feet off the ground when you place it on the glass cake saver my sister had given me years before.  So that means with a minimum focal length of 3 feet, the camera had to be at least 6 feet off the ground.  To get the picture of the two of us with the cake we would have to be in a specific angle, which means...

Step five.  Move all the paperwork, all the junk, and all the "desk toys" out of frame.  Picking up a living room full of junk and stashing it means that I'm cleaning house and making more heat.  The shower is getting extra humidity into the room.  I draw the blinds, turn on the air conditioning and start to pick things up. 

Step six.  Chill the cake.   This all has taken 2 hours and a half.  The cake is no longer "cool" and the icing does something I had never seen it do before.  The piping begins to run.  Kevin is still in the shower - that takes on average 20 minutes in itself... and I have a cake that is getting to look like someone exposed it to Mac Arthur Park.  Donna?  Is that you singing in the background....

Step seven... open the door to the refrigerator, walk into the kitchen with the cake and place it in the cleared shelf.

Step eight.  Swear loudly and give up in disgust.

You see what happened here was a quirk of my eyesight and inexperience of moving my "model" around.  I brushed the half melted piping against the refrigerator door.  Yep!  You guessed it I was screaming at everything from the refrigerator to the oven to Betty and her melty icing.   I was done.  The cake was not going to be pictured, other than the one set up shot.  If you look closely, my amateurish ring of white piping "blobs" around the edge had started to topple off the Death Edge of Cakey Goodness and down to the cliff below.   It was done.

Oh well, David, no pictures.   We'll try again this weekend.   You see, I have a 19th Anniversary to celebrate... and a cake to bake.   Went to GFS last night and got some confectioner's sugar and the rest I need to make some icing.   This time it will be a white cake with red and white jimmies.

Yes, they are called jimmies... this sprinkles nonsense has to go ... just like it is a Hoagie and not a sub or anything else....

Want some cake?  Here you go! 

No comments:

Post a Comment