NYC/NJ Trip

I just had to share my recent trip to New York City to visit Melissa. Mostly in pictures though...

A beautiful church being used as a theater:

We went all over the place - wandering, stopping off wherever, the weather was so nice after all!

One day, we went down to the union square area to go to the farmers market:

discovered this AWESOME bake-shop. They make cakes & pies that look like pieces of art!

Most of all, I got to spend time with two of my longest standing and best friends. To catch up & just chill out with them, share some laughs, good food, good times! It always surprises me how the years melt away when I get to see friends like that!

Then, I hopped a train back to Jeff & Elizabeth's house where I had the pleasure of spending a few days with my newest nephew Carter! he is such a little cuddle bug - I didn't want to leave! Jeff & Carter in their nightly routine (just before Carter goes into tree-frog position on Jeff's shoulder & they watch TV)

my little buddy bee!!!

Cake

I like cake. Cake is yummy. Do you like cake?

For my cake, I saw this picture in the Vermont Bride magazine of a birch bark and flower cake. so I kind of had a visual of what I wanted the cake to look like.

Now, for finding the bakery… my mom had a bunch of suggestions from co-workers, so I looked into all of them. We tasted (of course!) from a very well known (and very yummy) bakery in Syracuse. The cake was good – really good. Just not great… so I continued looking into bakeries. As much as I like cake, I thought (and still think) that multiple hundreds of dollars for a cake is a bit much. So I looked to keep costs down. When one day, a bakery we’ve not heard of from central square emailed me (Stephanie from Cakebox). I looked up her website & was surprised at what I saw – she had very nice looking work for a reasonable price. So I replied back to her email and set up a “cake tasting”

Now for the cake tasting… Jon & I both went with my parents. It was “an event.” First of all, my parents got lost getting there, so they were a bit late. The cake was awesome – I LOVED the chocolate – chocolate with the chocolate on top of the chocolaty chocolate. And Jon LOVED the carrot with the vomit – oh, I’m sorry, I mean cream cheese frosting (BARF!). so we compromised and got chocolate chocolate chocolate for half of the layers and carrot for the other half. I have to say – the carrot cake was delicious. I just HATE all things cream cheese. Its nasty. Always has been. Always will be. Sorry!

So after we decided on the flavors & such details, she asked me about what I wanted it to look like. Since I’m always prepared, I pull out the picture of my dream cake! and my mom is in shock! She starts calling me a tree lover & points out all these pictures from a book the baker had where the cakes were WHITE with flowers… she’s kidding of course. I don’t think she really cares what the cake looks like (as long as she gets some chocolate chocolate chocolate!!!). so it was an adventure… cake tasting is awesome though!! You get 3-4 different types of cake, and 3-4 types of fillings to try! Mix and match. I really liked the carrot cake with the chocolate ganache (but apparently that’s weird?) no idea…

Just a side note for wedding vendors: it is highly suggested that you have a website! I know that in my searches and trade studies on different vendors thru this process, I appreciate having some basic info (store hours, email, phone, location, services available) & a portfolio to look at to see if your style matches my own. Plus, it helps to show up on maps.google.com (I don’t know how many things I went there for, just entered my town & “hair salon” or whatever).