FIFTY – The Tragic Tale of the Cake that NO ONE WANTED (Published February 17th, 2012)

I think that my youth lived in my appendix. Hear me out.

This past December I ate a standard sausage egg and cheese brinner sandwich and spent the night writhing in pain while watching an entire season of The Cosby Show on Netflix. The following morning – after approximately zero minutes of sleep – I felt marginally better, called out of work, and asked friend Brittany to take me to the hospital. Which is something that I’ve never done before. The emergency room waiting area gave me vertigo, and the only way I could get across the room was to turn myself into a right angle. It was acute appendicitis. Excuse me – gangrenous acute appendicitis. After 15 hours and learning the hard way that I am violently allergic to morphine, I was admitted, and another 9 hours after that, I was in surgery.

Here’s my point – since the surgery, something has clicked into place. I’m having some sort of quarter-life crisis, and it’s making me examine my recent choices. I’m realizing that if I don’t like the path I’m on, I have to make a conscious decision to change it, and I need to do it now. Either a.) Shit or b.) get off the pot, etc.

Anyway I chose option c.) Spend 3 days making an octopus birthday cake for a friend who is indifferent when it comes to octopi and who is also intolerant of gluten.

My punishment for forgetting about the gluten thing was to haul this deceivingly heavy cake around Brooklyn for a day, practically begging people to eat it. I grew to hate the thing I had once loved.

The journey started at my apartment in Carroll Gardens. It was there that I sort of nailed down this technique of smoothing out one edge of a fondant ribbon to create a ruffled texture.

Yeah so I built the octopus head on top of a jar of nutella, and I can’t really explain why I did that. It just felt like a good idea at the time. Oh and at this point I am in a different location – a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn. I set up shop on the floor, which is a pro tip that you should probably write down.

The poor guy! Does he deserve such treatment? YES

Here I am crankin’ out some fondant ribbon, caught unawares. At this point I’ve been manipulating fondant for upwards of 5 hours and I’ve had just about enough.

The next day at brunch, I foolishly assumed that a.) the servers would exempt us from the cake surcharge based on the fact that it’s the most beautiful cake that anyone has ever seen up close, and b.) that my brunch companions would even want to eat the thing. Needless to say, the cake was not eaten.

And suddenly – MOJITOS

And then OHNO BLOODY MARY

In then end, I stored it away in its little cake tote and brought it to work with me the next morning. At the end of the day, there was still about a third of the cake left, which is a sure sign that I need to work on baking. Usually when baked goods are placed on that counter, lives are in danger.

Everyone ate around the octopus head for whatever reason, so as I went to dispose of the remains I had one last encounter with that asshole octopus face UGH I HATE HIM.