I love the Ents in Lord of the Rings because just imagine…committing eco-terrorism with a giant talking tree…just imagine if you could wake up the oak tree down the block like “hey let’s go march on the White House” and the tree would be like “sick”Â
I told my best friend last month that building my greenhouse is going to be more expensive than planned because the cost of materials has gone up a lot this year, and she sent me a cheque through the post with an adorable letter saying she wants to participate, in exchange for a lifelong supply of jars of jam and tomato sauce. I didn’t expect that!! She came to visit this week and I’d been trying to think of a way to thank her, and decided to make a Cake That Looks Like Another Thing, which is something I’ve never done before. It is utterly beyond my ability to make a greenhouse-shaped cake (those exist! they look so cute!), so in keeping with the theme I attempted to make one that looks like a little vegetable garden.
I bought biscuits to make fences, chocolate sprinkles for mulch, and various colours of sugar paste to make tiny vegetables and a snail (important). Then I sat down to make my very first sugar paste salad and realised I have never properly looked at a salad in my life. What does a salad look like. I decided the criteria were “cosy”, “folds” and “edible” and sent another friend a pic of my first attempt to ask if it evoked lettuce to her. She said “That is the most yonic vegetable I’ve ever seen in my life” sounding impressed. I flattened it with the rolling pin and tried again. My friend who had been appointed salad consultant against her will received another picture two minutes later and said “This one’s even worse. Or better, depending on what you’re trying to make.” “I’m trying to make a salad” “Try making it less foldy??” I tried. Then tried the opposite and desperately kept adding folds thinking surely at some point it will be too leafy to be a pussy. She mercilessly rejected like fifteen salads, “No”, “Nope”, “Georgia O’Keeffe is that you” before finally authorising three (3).
At first I thought she was messing with me and tried making a salad with the red sugar paste out of scientific curiosity, and was like, my bad. Ceci n’est pas une salade. It was amazing how all my different attempts just kept producing the same result—each salad actually looked a bit more yonic than the last, as I involuntarily perfected my craft. It was like discovering a very mild curse, like you could spend your entire life unaware that a lesbian witch cursed you at birth to sculpt nothing but vulva salads but when the time comes to make a vegetable garden cake it’s a major hindrance.
Anastasia (1997)
Ocean’s Eight (2018)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
The Witches (1990)
Always feel a tinge of pride when religious people say that intellectually consistent atheists should be depressed nihilists instead of glib utilitarians. That's me! I'm better than all those other atheists!
on your marks, get set, bake! broke 1k kudos on Ao3 earlier this week and I got really emo about it, so I made you all a powerpoint. I hope you like it!Â
(For the recipe without all the shenanigans, click here.)