Anarchist Cupcakes

I've only lived in Seattle for about six months, but I've gotten to like it pretty well. People here are really friendly. Seriously, I've never found highway driving so relaxing. Also, I know it's what everyone says, but it's so green. All these pine trees. I can't wait for a green winter.

I am going to be missing St. Louis winters a little bit. Sure, they're unpredictable in every way except coldness, but there's at least a chance for snow. I hear in Seattle when it snows an inch, everyone panics. To be fair, I've also heard they don't have snow plows. But contrast this with Minnesota. I lived in Minnesota for two years of my childhood. The first year it snowed almost to the top of the doorway, and we got one day off of school.

Or so I've heard. I was a little young to remember much besides there was snow and it was fun. St. Louis closed their schools pretty quickly, but sometimes those snowstorms got crazy and others they only dropped a half-inch. So you couldn't blame the school board for panicking.

There are a lot of things I miss about St. Louis. I miss toasted ravioli and a city monument I didn't feel like sniggering at. I miss gentle hills. I miss my old job. Sometimes. I miss Mr. Loft. I miss free museums and zoo. I miss the Soulard Farmer's Market.

The Soulard Market is one of the oldest public markets still operating in America. It is a great place to go for cheap and interesting foods. One arm is filled with flowers. Another with grocery store rejects. In others, you can find live ducks and chickens with their eggs, gigantic morel mushrooms, free trade coffee, and Black bear bakery, an anarchist co-op that makes the best damn chocolate cupcakes I have ever tasted.

Seriously, if forced to choose between a lifetime supply of these cupcakes and Kevin, I would still choose Kevin, but it would take me maybe twenty, thirty minutes to decide.

Today, in Starbucks, I saw similarly decadent looking chocolate cupcakes, complete with a monstrous swirl of icing and a white chocolate rose perched at the tip, and I missed those cupcakes badly.

Those Starbucks ones just can't change that.