day 179: hey, babycakes!

04.09.10 (posted 04.11.10) - after work, i stood in line for over an hour in the freezing cold to attend CupcakeCamp nyc.

side note --- geez, what happened to the weather these past couple of days in nyc? temps dropped about 15 degrees. brrrr. bring spring back, mother nature. 

back to cupcake camp nyc... according to the official CupcakeCamp website, "it's an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and eat cupcakes in an open environment."

as i waited in line, there were a lot of passerbys wondering why the heck a line was forming on some random street at the border of the lower east side and chinatown. the line was long... there must have been at least 80 people in front of my group of friends and about 50 people (and growing) behind us. i was approached by some tourists from europe and felt kind of ridiculous explaining to them what all the hoopla was about. "uh, we are in line to eat cupcakes and get cocktails... cupcakes... you know, small cakes..." they chuckled and shook their heads. i knew they must be thinking, "oh you funny, americans." haha.

the venue for the event was a bar/lounge called happy ending. in its former life, the bar was an erotic massage parlor. oh, the irony. cupcakes... cocktails... craziness. only in nyc can we get away with this stuff.

all in all, the event was underwhelming... down right "meh". i'm not sure that the venue was the best place to do it. it was chaos. uneaten, half eaten cupcakes everywhere. some folks brought boxes and grabbed as many cupcakes as they could or stuffed their faces silly. if i was a baker that brought cupcakes, i think i would be pretty flustered with the whole set up. after about 20 minutes in the claustrophobic place, we needed out. it was a shame that most of the cupcakes were gone or wasted because there was still a huge line waiting to get inside after we left. i'm not sure how other cities CupcakeCamps are but i don't think i'll be returning next year. my friends and i decided that we should throw our own CupcakeCamp instead... in the confront of our own homes. there we could savor all the yummy goodness and joy of eating cupcakes in peace.