Potential Allergens in food

I got this from a friend this morning, it is a link to everything the FDA has under recall.
Food and drug recall list

I have to say, it came as a huge shock to me, that many products being recalled due to undeclared allergens - peanuts, soy, Milk, food colorings....the list goes on!

Even more shocking, some "big name" companies that are on there, companies that you would normally trust. But there it is - "Keebler", apparently recalling all products sold under that name for undeclared peanuts.

This is a list I will certainly be checking quite often!

A Cautionary Tale

A decorator friend recently emailed me this, her own personal experience

"This past weekend I delivered a cake at 8am. They needed more tablecloths so he went across the street to the ‘sister’ location- which is the high end location on the water. He came back to say they were having a cake disaster in the kitchen. I went over to see if I could help. An aunt had bake a 14” and 12” tier, blueberry filling yellow cake. No damming was done to keep the filling from coming out. The cakes had not been leveled so they still had the crowns on them and she had used store bought frosting so you could see the cake through the frosting. There was no support inside of the cake and the cakes were not on cake boards so it was sliding and imploding on itself. The layers were held together with 3” wide outside ribbon- what you would use at a gravesite- very appropriate. They had placed it on a piece of plywood- it was a casual wedding and the cake was held in place by sheet rock screws. I know this because they were sticking out through the cake that had moved.

It gets better.

The father had kept the cake in the trunk overnight thinking it would be ok. She had brought 2 8” cakes to be cut into. These were separate, crowning, yellow cakes with the blueberry oozing through the store bought frosting. The wedding planner was almost in tears as it was not 8am yet. (She recently has ACL surgery and had fallen and torn the reconstruction and was limping painfully) I took the 2 cakes home (I live 2 miles away) and threw them in the freezer. I cut one of them into a 6” (after scraping all the frosting off both) and leveled them out. I found some leftover green ribbon and made a 2 tiered cake with ribbon at the base and placed it on a 12” round styro covered in different white wedding ribbon. (Leftover) One hour later the bride had a basic cake to cut into. The location chose to throw away the cake in the kitchen do to food safe issues. 1)exposed plywood 2)sheet rock screws 3) cake left in warm trunk over night.

The FOTB was then charged $8/person at their casual wedding of 100 people (hall minimum) for a standard dessert. I posted this on my blog to remind brides that it is not always the best idea to skimp on something that could poison all your guests. Ditch the favors and get a decent cake!

With the proliferation of cake decorating shows that make it look so easy, people that decorate cakes for family and friends for special events, and the cost of weddings in general, couples can be lured into the idea that a great way to save money is to have a friend or family member do the cake (or even do it themselves!!). As a professional wedding cake decorator that did her own cake, I strongly suggest that you not do that! I do this for a living, but making my own wedding cakes was extremely stressful, and a huge time suck when I wanted (and needed!) to be doing other things.

While that story was from a friend, I have had a few of my own, the one I most remember is the MOB that came in to my shop in tears the day before her daughters wedding, begging me to finish the cake she started and then realized she just did not have the skills or knowledge to finish - when problems arose with the icing, she just did not have the experience to know what to do.

As my fellow decorator so succinctly says "ditch the favors and get a decent cake!" Find somewhere else to save, and entrust not only the quality of the cake, but the health of your guests - to a professional.

Act now to protect small local farms!

Our local farmers need your help!!!

I am sure many of you are aware of the organic bill that passed a few years back, which made so many small farms unable to get certified organic due to the prohibitive cost. Funny how that worked out to favor the large industrial farms in the end.

Now there is Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, intended to strengthen federal food safety oversight and enforcement. Unfortunately, the bill’s heavy-handed approach to accomplishing this endangers the continued existence of the small and medium-sized family farms that make up our local and regional food systems.
As currently written, S. 510 would not differentiate between large factory farms that have been implicated in national foodborne illness outbreaks and small local farms that have not. This bill will turn even small farms into FDA-regulated facilities that would need to meet potentially crippling requirements and pay large fees that they could not afford.

This bill is supposed to be directed at farms that go over state lines, but as you can easily imagine in an area like ours, farmers can literally be selling in farmers markets in 3 different states and never drive more than 30 minutes.

THIS IS A BIG DEAL!! PLEASE contact your senators and tell them you do not support this bill! This link is the best I have found on the subject, and you can find the contact for your senators there. Make it a point to contact them today, and support your local farmers!

Wendy's Marathon

Wendy is not only a longtime customer, but a simply amazing person, and truly inspiring.

She is a bone marrow donor, and is now celebrating her 5th YEAR running the Boston Marathon to benefit Childrens Hospital Boston. This year she has even upped the challenge by running Boston2BigSur, running 2 marathons on opposite ends of the county in one week.

I know there are so many places asking you to give right now, so I am upping the ante. Donate to Wendy, and I will match the amount of your donation with a HCB gift certificate, up to $25. You can use more than one certificate at a time as well, so I am sure there are some couples out there that can get friends and family to donate - there are not many times you can say your wedding cake was tax deductible!

Please check out her page and after you sit there in awe of her for a few minutes, consider donating.

Good Luck Wendy!!

How did it get to be PIE TIME already!!

Well, I don't know how it happened, but here it is! The Thanksgiving Day menu is up, peruse away and please place your order by Sunday November 22nd!

We will again be baking pies for delivery by Boston Organics, so if you are a customers of thiers, be on the lookout for the Thanksgiving menu.

Boston Veg Fest - October 31st and November 1st

Hey everyone, it is that time of year again - Boston Vegetarian Food Festival time that is!

If you haven't been before, this is a great, TOTALLY FREE event at the Reggie Lewis Athletic Center in Roxbury. There is plenty of parking, and easy access for the T. This year the festival will be expanding to 2 days, 10AM-6PM on Saturday, and 10AM-4PM on Sunday.

Come hungry, because there are TONS of companies giving out samples of every kind of food you could imagine. There is also great vendors selling everything from jewelry to books, to tofu makers...it is huge and fun and well worth the trip.

There is also a great slate of speakers - unfortunately we never get to get away from the booth to catch them, this year they run the gamut from cookbook authors to comedians...including on Sunday our favorite, Lauren Ulm, who we were lucky enough to have made a wedding cake for her wedding.

This year we will have our full spread as we have done in years past,

ranging from muffins andscones to cookies, brownies, cakes, cupcakes and biscotti.

Of course, it wouldn't be veg fest without our hand rolled and dipped vegan sugar cookies - spooky ghosts and fall leaves! Also, as we did last year, we will also be bringing some gluten-free vegan items. And as we do every year, look for a few treats and suprises that we make as time allows. In the past we have made French apple tarts, chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pies, and more....we will have to see where inspiration takes us this year!

For more Check out the festival page here. Hope to see you there!

Star Wars, Nothing but Star Wars (cakes)

I have been wanting to put these on for a while, just never seem to think of it when I am posting. No commentary necessary from me, I think they are all pretty obvious (or maybe that is just because I have a Star Wars geek for a husband)

I know there are more out there - so does anyone have a picture of a Star Wars cake we have done for you? Add it on our Facebook page!