Happy Birthday, Shaudi!

Shaudi turns a whopping 25 today! Yay, Shaudi!



Burning calories.


Consuming calories.


Violet's adorable cupcakes



Chocolate chip cake with chocolate mousse and vanilla buttercream.

She'll kick your bazzaz!

Vegan power!

My friends, gym-mates, and fellow vegans Shalon and Violet will represent Pacific Ring Sports on the undercard for an all-woman, Muay Thai competition on October 25 in Daly City.



I'm looking forward to watching them kick ass in their amateur debuts. Wish them luck! (And good luck to Diane, too!)

Sugar Beat Sweets

Last week, I helped Melisser prepare for a busy weekend at San Francisco's World Veg Festival with Sugar Beat Sweets. She had spent the previous day in the kitchen with the talented Carmen, baking hundreds of cupcakes and mixing up giant bowls of frosting. I came in on Friday for 11 hours of more cupcake making and non-stop frosting-piping. As much as I love baking, it was a long day!

On Saturday, Sugar Beat Sweets set up a booth at Veg Fest next to the friendly folks at Save A Bunny and their adorable, and amazingly calm, Mr. Pinkerton.



Cinnamon buns, brownies, and candy corn went quickly and were gone by the early afternoon.



We had 8 flavors of cupcakes: Chocolate, Vanilla, PB&J, Orange Dreamsicle, Snickerdoodle, Peppermint Patty, Peanut Butter Cup, and Chocolate Snowball.



It was another long day, but lots of fun! It was great seeing young children get excited at the opportunity to indulge in treats that they probably have watch sadly as their peers devour the conventional versions at school and parties. The crowd loved Melisser's recipes, with several repeat customers coming back again and again, claiming they were the best cupcakes they had ever tasted.

The kind Antonio of Flacos traded cupcakes for his crew, for a delicious lunch of tamales, taquitos, and pozole. Our friend, personal chef Jesse Miner gave a presentation about cooking and preparing heirloom beans and shared the leftover garlicky bruschetta with us. There were also samples galore from the various food and services vendors throughout the hall.

If you missed out on cupcakes and are in the Bay Area, make sure to stop by any of these locations that carry Sugar Beat Sweets:

Rainbow Grocery - 1745 Folsom @ 14th Street
Other Avenues - 3930 Judah Street @ 44th Avenue
Real Food Co. - 2140 Polk @ Broadway
Ike's Place - 3506 16th St @ Sanchez
Underdog - 1634 Irving St @ 17th Avenue
Harvest Urban Market - 191 8th St @ Howard

Melisser also takes special orders through her website.

World Veg Festival Weekend - San Francisco

October 4th and 5th brings the World Veg Festival to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. There will be speakers, cooking demos, tasty food, and other good things.

Saturday & Sunday, October 4 & 5, 2008
$6 suggested donation
Free for Kids, Students, & Seniors
San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park, entrance 9th Ave & Lincoln Way

Sugar Beat Sweets will have a booth with cupcakes and other goodies for sale. I'll be helping Melisser out on Saturday, so stop by to say hi!

Don't let these burnt cupcakes die in vain!