“Hey, aren’t you limeduck?”
I froze like a raccoon caught hot-wiring a Mazda coupe. I was with ubranaut C at Flour Bakery and one a table of women making valentine decorations thought she knew me. As it turns out, it was none other than @trishofthetrade, and she had seen – and remembered – my Podcamp presentation from 2009 with the estimable @gradontripp. I was gobsmacked.
Her friend C asked my friend C, “do you like red velvet?” He fumbled for a moment until I elbowed him and inserted myself, The answer is yes,” I said. “Yes, he does like red velvet.” I thought he was just tongue-tied, but it turned out that he had never had a red velvet (cup)cake and did not even really know what Red Velvet is.
Turns out Trish was part of a group organizing an event called “OMG Red Velvet: a pretty sweet benefit for Lovin’ Spoonfuls” tomorrow night at the selfsame South Boston bakery. It’s a benefit for a food harvest organization (they gather up food from restaurants and other good businesses and bring it to those in need) , and it will feature Red Velvet creations (not just cake!) by local culinary luminaries such as Wil Gilson of Garden at the Cellar.
So, for C and anybody else not fully clued in, Red Velvet is a kind of cake that’s red. It used to be red from a chemical reaction of a type of cocoa, but during world war II, beet juice and later food coloring came to be the reddener of choice. It’s pretty much cake flavored but some variations are chocolately. For maximum drama, it’s usually set off with white buttercream or cream cheese icing. What exactly non-cake Red Velvet foods might be, I guess you’ll have to get yourself a ticket to tomorrow’s event and find out for yourself. Perhaps I’ll see you there.
And in case you’re wondering, no, red velvet doesn’t taste like beets at all. Not that that would be such a bad thing.