TV, or Yes, Theresa, I am a Real Person

What happens when your pickle and ice cream cupcakes get written up in People magazine?  It turns out that you get to be on local TV (the clip is at the bottom of this post)!

If you are not from St. Louis (or even if you are) you may not recognize the dude on the left in this photo - it's Tim Ezell from the Fox morning show.  The lovely lady on the right is my prego friend Lori who got to come on the show to taste test my cupcakes.  It was great for my nerves to have a friend along.  As for the person in the middle holding the plate of cupcakes, that's me!  I thought that I'd shown enough pictures of me on the blog that my readers would have some idea of what I looked like, but judging from Theresa's tweet after the episode aired, I guess not:

To show you even more of what a real person I am, I will point out that my biggest dilemma about being on TV was what the heck to do with my hair.  I've been into braids recently...

...but I thought maybe that would be too cutesy.  I took a poll in my hula hoop class (clearly they are all fashion experts) and it was a unanimous vote for hair down - so that's what I did. (Yes, I wrote this whole section just for an excuse to throw in another picture of Myles.  Next time, maybe he'll get to come on the news with me.)

My biggest fear about being on the show was having to scoop ice cream on air. Would the ice cream be too hard?  Would I grunt?  When you watch the clip, you'll see that I had the opposite problem; it was too soft and stuck to the scoop - oh, well!

The folks at FOX 2 were super nice and I look forward to the opportunity to feed them cupcakes again some time in the future!

Here's the clip:

The Saint Louis Beacon Features Cupcakes - Including Mine

I don't love this photo of me (did you happen to notice my bra strap?). However, I do love this article about me and Cupcake Project in the Saint Louis Beacon! To say that reporter Kristen Hare did a great job would be an understatement. She truly did her homework. In addition to interviewing me on the phone and in my kitchen, she phone interviewed Groom 1.0, and to my surprise, she even called Kitchen Conservatory where I have taught some cupcake classes.

The cupcake article featuring this blog was part of a series of articles on cupcakes in St. Louis. If you live in the area, I recommend that you read them all. The series includes:

• Let Them Eat Cupcakes - An overview of the St. Louis cupcake scene.
• The Cupcake Newcomer - Features Sweet Art, a cupcake bakery after my own heart. "They use no transfats, no preservatives, many ingredients are bought locally and are organic. 'We don't use mixes.'"
• The Cupcake Pioneers - Features Jilly's (home of the giant and often stuffed cupcakes) and The Cupcakery (home of simple and yummy cupcakes).
  
• The Cupcake Explorer - That's me!!
  

About the St. Louis Beacon

I do still subscribe to St. Louis's printed paper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, because I enjoy holding newsprint in my hand while I eat my Cheerios in the morning. However, I'm forever frustrated with the deteriorating quality of our paper.

The St. Louis Beacon consists largely of people who used to work at the Post, but were laid off when it was bought out. As evidenced by professionalism displayed by Kristen in writing even these feature stories on cupcakes, The Beacon's staff takes journalism seriously.

The Beacon is a tremendous and underutilized resource for local St. Louis news coverage. I encourage my St. Louis readers to check it out.

Coming Up Next

Your regularly scheduled cupcakes will return soon. Cookie dough cupcakes are up next!

Easter Trivia

Q: What part of the chicken's body determines the color of its egg?

The answer is at the end of the post.

Last night, I attended a Slow Food trivia night (Convivial Pursuit). I never attend trivia nights because I suck at trivia, and frankly, I don't like doing activities I suck at. I love food, however, so I thought a trivia night with only questions about food might be something I could excel at. Wrong! I was of no use to my team. There was only one question that remotely related to cupcakes. They showed the following cookbook on the big screen without the title and author and we were supposed to know the author.

I felt like the whole room expected to me to know the answer. "Come on, Cupcake Girl. Here's your chance to shine." Did I know the answer? Nope.

Any foodies who like trivia and live in St. Louis should consider attending next year. I'd go again, but only to volunteer. No more trivia for me. I've given it a fair chance and I'm going for the clean break-up.

To see the pictures from last night, go to J. Pollack Photography and enter the access code QJPKAKSW at the bottom of the page.

Congrats to the Sauce Magazine staffers on winning the trivia night and to Iron Stef for her big 50/50 raffle win! As you can see on left, Steph was a bit excited.

A: The ear. Chicken breeds with white ear lobes lay white eggs, whereas chickens with red ear lobes lay brown eggs.

Missouri Bean to Bar Update and a Reason to Go to St. Louis' Union Station

On Valentine's Day, I wrote about Patric chocolate, a top-notch chocolate that is produced from bean to bar in Missouri. Earlier this week, reader Kristen wrote to let me know that Cioccolato, a store located in St. Louis' Union Station carries Askinosie, another Missouri bean to bar chocolate.

Those of you who live in or have visited St. Louis know that Union Station is basically a tourist mall. The best part of it is a fudge show where the employees sing and dance and fling fudge in the air to look like the St. Louis arch. Despite the fact that it is a mall, it's not really a place you think of to go and buy things, especially not gourmet chocolate.

Looking for an excuse to try out the chocolate store, I had the following conversation with my husband:

Me: Why don't we go to Union Station to buy the dress shirt you need for the upcoming wedding?

My husband: Union Station won't have dress shirts.

Me: Sure they will.

It turned out that there was one shop in Union Station that carried dress shirts. It was a tie shop and it only had about 30 shirts (not 30 styles, 30 shirts). None of them were in his size.

Cioccolato, however, was not a bust! It was a hidden St. Louis gem. Unfortunately, Kristen was not working that night, but the woman who helped us (I didn't catch her name) was incredibly knowledgeable about chocolate and went out of her way to make sure we knew about what we were buying. She also gave enough free samples to make the visit worth our while.

We ended up purchasing two varieties of Askinosie chocolate. In my opinion, it wasn't as good the Patric. However, to each her own. Our salesperson said she didn't much care for the Patric. Blasphemy!

One fun thing about the Askinosie chocolate (aside from the name that makes it sound like it's made for Jewish chocolate lovers and the fact that it is from Springfield, MO) is the fact that there is a code on the package that you can type into their website to see the history of your bar. It's like Webkinz for chocolate lovers.

We also bought a bar of Amano chocolate (a Utah bean to bar company) that came highly recommended by Tempered Woman. Again, our saleslady said she didn't think it was all that, but she did admit that many rank it the best chocolate ever.

Lastly, we picked up a couple of hot cocoa mixes from Vosges that I had heard of but are not carried at Whole Foods. I'm particularly excited about the Bianca Courture Cocoa. You may see a cupcake that features this product in the future.

If you are in St. Louis, you now have a reason to go to Union Station. Although, call first, our saleslady mentioned that the store may be moving to somewhere else downtown. I'm not surprised.