Cupcakes and Cookbooks: Celebrating the Life of a Family Foodie

Sisters in the Kitchen (L-R: Mother Pie Bird, Aunt)

I'm headed to Seattle this week - but unfortunately not for some grand taste-the-town outing (really all I want is some Thai food - pretty please?!). A dear aunt passed away suddenly and I'm flying out to help with packing and organizing and a memorial service. 

One of the reasons this aunt was so special to me was that we shared a love of the kitchen - and cookbooks! We would spend afternoons hunting through used bookstores, picking up old classics and finding new culinary adventures. In graduate school, I would drive up from Oregon  and we would cook together for Thanksgiving. More recently, she brainstormed ideas for pies for the pie buffet at my wedding and we exchanged recipes for butter tarts and poutine over e-mail. 

Now that my family is packing up her things, deciding what to keep and what to sell and what to give away, one thing is for sure... her cookbooks are in high demand! Notes in the pages, folded corners, a favorite cookbook is a wonderful way to remember someone -  I'm fortunate to even have a handwritten and hand-bound cookbook of her recipes. After family and close friends pick out cookbooks from her stack this week, the remaining ones will be set out at the memorial service so that everyone can take a little bit of her with them. It gives me goosebumps!

The other part of celebrating the loss of a foodie that I have discovered is that sending flowers just won't do. Edible fruit arrangement? Didn't seem right. Potted rosemary plant? A little odd. And then it hit me. Cupcakes.

Since it's Seattle, I had no trouble finding a cupcake shop practically down the street from her house - and where my family members are now gathering. Cupcake Royale had every flavor I wanted AND they deliver. I sent a dozen cupcakes that should arrive tomorrow - an assortment of Peppermint Party (had to have something green!), Lemon Drop, Coconut Bunny, and the Plain Jane (her namesake!). 

Fingers crossed that there are some left when I arrive Friday night! If not, I think I'll be venturing down there myself to try out some of their other flavors: the Kate (it's my namesake, after all), Triple Threat, Royale with Cheese, chocolate Coconut Bunny, Orange U Glad, Dance Party, Classic, Lavender, Red Velvet, Carrot Cake, Salted Caramel... and their cupcake of the month... Bacon  Whiskey Maple!

I love that they work so hard to source local, fresh ingredients (from flour to cherry liquor!) and, really, how can you go wrong with a company blog called Legalize Frostitution? I didn't need to look anywhere else.

So, in sum, cookbooks and cupcakes are my celebration of her life - and I know she would love it (and is probably a little peeved that she's missing the cupcakes). Luckily, she's now busy enjoying lemon meringue clouds and endless shelves of cookbooks that exist in the Big Kitchen in the Sky.