Thursday’s Thread Swap

Thursday, the 18th of June, was the Thread Swap, hosted by Alex at the Black Box Collective.  I was offered an area to sell vegan baked goods at, and so, I baked up a little army of edibles to sell at the event.

Before showing up on the 18th, I’d never been to the Black Box Collective, nor really knew what it was all about.  I had heard about it from a handful of people, but nothing really cohesive or that really painted a picture of what Black Box is and what it’s all about.

That evening, I had been running late because I was hungry and stopped for a sandwich at Pom-Pom’s.  When I got to the place at 7 pm, Alex was the only one there amid bags of used clothes, slowly being sorted and strewn about.  The Black Box Collective is housed in a warehouse, and it reminded me a lot of what the Stone Soup Collective used to be like: no a/c and a DIY attitude.  A few leaks from the recent rain dripped onto the floor, so we had to alter some of the placement of clothes draped upon the donated church pews.  The doors were wide open to let any cooler breezes into the building.  I helped Alex set out some clothing as people began to trickle in, then I set up shop on a table by one of the entrances.

It turned out to be a really awesome evening of digging through clothes, drinking beer, meeting people, listening to music, selling baked goods and hanging out, despite the insane heat that permeated the building once more people started showing up.  I made chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cupcakes with coconut icing, chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing, blackberry scones and all spice crumb-topped muffins.  All the items were vegan and made from scratch.  The goods sold well, considering the clientele of the fashionably broke and that Jorge was selling $2 beer at the Black Box Bar.  I overbaked a bit this time around, but my coworkers at the library were jolly at having some of the excess cookies at work.

The musical side to the evening was fantastic.  Dani Shay started the evening out with her guitar and witty banter, followed by the acoustic talents of Amy White and then an excellent performance by Open Windows.  If you missed out on seeing any of these three acts, you should check out their MySpace pages to look up where they will be next, because all of them had fantastic performances, and I feel really lucky to have been able to see all three of them.  I stayed at Black Box a lot longer than I had originally intended because I enjoyed the company and the performances so much.  Mollie joined in after she got out of class, so that was an extra bonus.

I had a great time at the Black Box, and would love to hold another bake sale again, especially if I get to pick through the discarded outfits of others and score finds on the same level as I did on the 18th.  If you’re interested in seeing what’s going to be coming up in the future at the venue, why not visit the Black Box Collective’s website, or see them on Facebook or MySpace.  After speaking with Jorge that night, there’s a lot in store for Black Box’s future, and if I wasn’t moving to London, I’d definitely want in on it, because it sounds really exciting.  There’s an online forum on the website as well, so go hobnobb.

Peanut Butter Cuppage

Over the weekend I made these dead-easy peanut butter cups from a recipe out of my new copy of Everyday Food, a publication from Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Although “Martha Stewart Omnimedia” sounds creepy ominous, Everyday Food is a great little mag, and I’ve been a subscriber for a year now, and recipes like Easy Peanut Butter Cups really make it pay off. If you want to attempt the recipe, keep about four extra ounces of chocolate on hand; I had trouble with the chocolate sticking to the microwavable bowls I was using, and so I wound up nuking up more chocolate to melt in order to scoop ‘em over the peanut butter. Also, my cups wound up a little mottled, but I liked the look a bit better than that of the conventional Reese’s cup. I skipped the peanuts on top, too.

PS: I went onto MarthaStewart.com to look for the chocolate peanut butter cup recipe above, and the front page had this little feature on cupcakes… and the photo/decoration of the cupcakes make them look like breasts with nipples! Okay, the big red dot is a little off in colour, but I guess you can be the judge. In any case, I have a new idea for decorating cupcakes.

Beer and cupcakes

Last night I went to Redlight Redlight’s Pinklight Bazaar, which was packed with people in “classy & sassy attire” flipping through vendor goods and gnoshing on cupcakes. The vendor area was too packed for me to elbow my way through, and since I was low on the cash anyway, Hao and I eventually planted ourselves at the cupcake corner of the bar.

So, what beer does one drink when eating a lovely coconut-vanilla cupcake? I opted to go light, with one of my most favourite beers, the Hitachino Nest White Ale. The hint of spice and orange peel in this clean, crisp beer was lovely in washing down the cupcake, and I was finished with my glass too soon. Instead of continuing along the line of witbiers, I made the mistake of getting a frambois-type concoction that was too sweet–I ended up not finishing it. A shame.

Judging by the attendance, the event seemed like it was quite a success–there were worries among my crowd of falling through to the bakery downstairs–but like I said earlier, due to the crowd, I didn’t really get to paw through the goods that were featured by the craftswomen for sale. In any case, the cupcakes were lovely.