Breaking news about baked goods

I read a newspaper this morning just because I had the time to. And I learned something very, very important. You may be thinking that I'm referring to an article about the kerfuffle in Congress over tax cut legislation, but I am not.

The newspaper I read featured an article by Sylvia Rector--"Experts predict surprising trends for foodies"-- reprinted from the Detroit Free Press, and it contains important information about two important foods: cupcakes and pie.

According to Rector, pies are poised to overtake cupcakes in popularity in 2011:

Cupcakes will take a backseat as pies -- glorious pies! -- begin showing up in every size, form and format, from savory to sweet and from deep-dish to individual deep-fried ones.

While I love cupcakes with their sweet tastes and cute decorations, I am equally enamored of pie, and just as I can go to a cupcakery and find nothing but cupcakes, I would love to see a pie shop open in my hometown.

Especially if it looks like the Pie Hole from Pushing Daisies.

But I am flexible and will overlook architecture and interior design as long as there are pies.

...but I do miss that TV show.

Thinking about pie instead of studying French,

Of cupcakes, libraries, and pop culture

Cupcakes are good. They're also quite popular at the moment. There are the TV shows--Cupcake Wars, DC Cupcakes (both ridiculously easy to get wrapped up in, FYI)--and, of course, the cupcakeries, as in bakeries that exist to make the pretty little cakes.

My friend Kirstie and I recently made a couple trips to Oh My Cupcakes!, a recent cupcakery--and the only one--in our 150,000 population city.

Cupcakes are pretty easy and inexpensive to make (although I accidentally started a small fire in the oven when making some a few years ago, which is another story for another post), but there's something cutesy and magical about walking into a building dedicated to them and looking at rows and rows of choices through glass displays, picking one, and eating it from a little blue plate.

YUM.

Anyway. Cupcakes have always been good, before special shops and TV shows and whatnot. At the library where I work, someone recently pointed out an NPR article, "Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries."

The article cites various signs of libraries' advancement in pop culture, one of them being YouTube spoofs like this parody on Old Spice ads, which if you haven't seen yet, watch now, because it's kinda sorta really awesome:

Awesome, right?

Wrapping up here, as the article suggests, cupcakes and libraries currently have a couple things in common: They've always been great, and pop culture attention is fun, but they'll keep being fantastic with or without it. And I guess that's my point. Before I read the NPR article, I hadn't put much thought into it, but I can see libraries becoming more talked-about recently--they're economical, green, etc.

Hmm. Thoughts to think and culture to contemplate. Cupcakes to eat...