Any self-respecting New Yorker knows that Magnolia Bakery is the place to go for cupcakes. In fact, anyone who’s seen “Sex and the City,” “Spin City” or “The Devil Wears Prada,” or YouTube-searched the words “Lazy Sunday,” probably knows about this pleasant little Bleecker Street bakery. Magnolia is actually a citywide presence(the business franchised to Midtown and Rockefeller Plaza after new owners Steve and Tyra Abrams took over in 2007), but the most famous location, the one from “Sex and the City,” resides in the trendy, super-exclusive West Village, Manhattan’s perennial playground for its more recession-proof citizens.
The place isn’t much to look at. But like all classic New York eateries, the food is fantastic and definitely warrants all the high-profile name-checks. The cupcakes are blissful albeit artery-clogging, and the prices ($3 per cupcake) can be a tad steep, but nobody can argue that you don’t get what you pay for; even if CitySearch only ranks Magnolia at three and a half stars out of five (one poster writes: “nothing blew us away. Not to mention…it’s pretty darn expensive!”), the line is consistently out the door.
Founded in 1996 by Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel, Magnolia is homey to the core. Bakers bustle out trays of pastries every few minutes or so, full-blown cakes (priced from $24 to $48, depending on the type of cake) line display cases and a sign reminds buyers they’re only allowed a dozen cupcakes at a time. And since the food at Magnolia is all takeout, it shouldn’t be a surprise that a visit during peak hours is about as close to smash-mouth cupcake shopping as it comes. Sometimes foreign camera crews filming the Marc Jacobs store down the block capture their reporters grabbing a bite. OK, cameras and New York aggression aren’t homey by anyone’s reckoning, but it’s still as close to small-town sweetness as New York City gets.
And while Magnolia certainly isn’t timid with their pricing ($2.50 for a regular cupcake, $3 for “special” treats like the red velvet and pumpkin cupcakes), at least they’re not overly secretive about their tricks. Appel’s 1999 “The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook,” as well as Torey’s “More From Magnolia” (2004) outline the basic recipes for the store’s offerings, including the cupcakes.
One such tidbit: the cupcake icing contains two (!) sticks of butter. Eat too many of these bad boys and you’re on the short list for a heart attack. But there are certainly worse ways to go.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
An NJ Italian's take on "Jersey Shore"
The actual Jersey shore kind of lost its mystique for me a few years ago, but MTV's "Jersey Shore" is nothing short of glorious. I mean, I was appalled from start to finish, but it was kind of like watching a spray-tanned, juiced-up train wreck. I couldn't look away.
If you've heard anything about this show, know this: it's just what it's marketed as. MTV basically rodeoed a bunch of guidos and guidettes, dropped them in Seaside Heights and told 'em to go nuts. The only sort of dues they owe is that they have to work regular hours at a Boardwalk thrift shop. It doesn't seem like they can work worth a damn or have two brain cells to rub together, but everyone loves them and their nights are always epic. My fellow New Jerseyans' Facebook statuses were pretty uniformly outraged at this depiction of the Dirty; a friend of mine who was on my high school wrestling team before I got there wrote something along the lines of "stop destroying Jersey MTV, we're doing that just fine by ourselves."
I'm not necessarily sold on that, though. Frankly, I thought the show was absolutely hilarious, if only because the people on it are absolute idiots. Well, maybe an idiot is a strong word, they're simple, and charmingly so. Like most guidos I know (and I do know a few), give 'em a blowout, a bottle of booze, and a girl with a fake tan and hair extensions and they're good to go. I may be an Italian but I'm pretty much the anti-guido; I don't have enough hair for a blowout. I'm afraid of needles, so I won't get a tattoo. And I've never set foot in Seaside Heights, a place so sketchy it's affectionately known as "Sleazeside" in the greater North Jersey community.
But they love it there, and while packing a suitcase entirely full of hair gel or nicknaming yourself "the Situation" might seem socially unacceptable to some, for these guys it's just the norm. I've never met any of them, but it seems like all they want in life is a steady job and a high school education. There's something refreshing about TV heroes with minimal ambition but a love of life, women and alcohol that knows no bounds. Also, it's worth noting that none of them seem particularlly mean; they're fools to the last man but they're basically what my mother would call "good boys." They understand the value of work, family and friendship, and they generally seem already like they might take a bullet for each other. Morons? Maybe. Demeaning to Italians? Depends who you ask; I'm inclined to think guidos are the least of our worries. But the "Jersey Shore" crew seem about as gentle souls at heart as I've ever met.
That said, I haven't seen the episode where the one girl gets punched in the face yet, so I could be eating my words very soon.
If you've heard anything about this show, know this: it's just what it's marketed as. MTV basically rodeoed a bunch of guidos and guidettes, dropped them in Seaside Heights and told 'em to go nuts. The only sort of dues they owe is that they have to work regular hours at a Boardwalk thrift shop. It doesn't seem like they can work worth a damn or have two brain cells to rub together, but everyone loves them and their nights are always epic. My fellow New Jerseyans' Facebook statuses were pretty uniformly outraged at this depiction of the Dirty; a friend of mine who was on my high school wrestling team before I got there wrote something along the lines of "stop destroying Jersey MTV, we're doing that just fine by ourselves."
I'm not necessarily sold on that, though. Frankly, I thought the show was absolutely hilarious, if only because the people on it are absolute idiots. Well, maybe an idiot is a strong word, they're simple, and charmingly so. Like most guidos I know (and I do know a few), give 'em a blowout, a bottle of booze, and a girl with a fake tan and hair extensions and they're good to go. I may be an Italian but I'm pretty much the anti-guido; I don't have enough hair for a blowout. I'm afraid of needles, so I won't get a tattoo. And I've never set foot in Seaside Heights, a place so sketchy it's affectionately known as "Sleazeside" in the greater North Jersey community.
But they love it there, and while packing a suitcase entirely full of hair gel or nicknaming yourself "the Situation" might seem socially unacceptable to some, for these guys it's just the norm. I've never met any of them, but it seems like all they want in life is a steady job and a high school education. There's something refreshing about TV heroes with minimal ambition but a love of life, women and alcohol that knows no bounds. Also, it's worth noting that none of them seem particularlly mean; they're fools to the last man but they're basically what my mother would call "good boys." They understand the value of work, family and friendship, and they generally seem already like they might take a bullet for each other. Morons? Maybe. Demeaning to Italians? Depends who you ask; I'm inclined to think guidos are the least of our worries. But the "Jersey Shore" crew seem about as gentle souls at heart as I've ever met.
That said, I haven't seen the episode where the one girl gets punched in the face yet, so I could be eating my words very soon.
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