Today, I have scheduled a cake tasting for our wedding cake here in Chicago. Cole has a game tonight, but Boudreau let us leave Cole's morning practice a few minutes early so we could get back in time for our press conference.
"It's right at the end of this block", I tell the taxi driver and he pulls off to the side. Cole covers the fare and we get out into the fresh, late October air. Cole and I walk hand in hand down the crowded streets of the busy city. The little, yet city famous bakery, Anytime Cakes, is decorated with cakes and other sweets in the street window.
Cole opens the white washed door for me and I walk in first, our hands still clasped together. We walk up to the counter, where a small redhead, looking to be in either senior year of high school, or first year in college, stands looking bored. "Welcome to Anytime Cakes, how can I help you today?" The girl smiles at Cole and I.
"Hi. We're here for our scheduled cake tasting at one. I'm Meredith, and this is Cole".
"Ah, okay. Hold on just one moment", the girl says before walking into the kitchen. She comes back a moment with a woman who looks to be in her fifties or sixties, with dark hair and a natural face.
"So, you're here for your cake tasting for your wedding cake. I'm Clara", the woman shakes my hand, then Cole's, from across the counter. "If you want to just follow me, we can get started".
Clara walks around the end of the counter and we walk down a small hallway to a pink door with the words degustation de gateau painted in white. She opens the door and the room looks like a smaller version of the front of the bakery. The cases are filled with decoration wedding cakes. Some are small, others are ten tiers high.
"So, first I need to know a little bit more about your wedding", Clara shows us to a table, she takes a pen out of her apron, and takes a small packet of paper from behind the cake cases. "So, how many people are going to be at your wedding?"
"I have between a hundred fifty and two hundred people", I reply to her. She writes it on the first piece of paper.
"When is your wedding?"
"June".
"Where will the wedding be held?"
"Outside of Chicago, in a mansion".
"What is the theme of your wedding?"
"Fifties and sixties vintage".
"What are you looking for in the cake?"
"Cole and I, well, kind of just me, had thought about one of the memoir story cakes. I was thinking three or four tiers, but nothing gigantic. Maybe just a black and white, just a little bit of color".
"Okay", Clara writes on the first paper, then turns to the second page, which is blank, and starts to draw out the cake. It's just a rough, quick sketch, but it still looks really good. A moment later she turns the sketch around for us to see. She uses her pencil to point out different features. "So, down here, I was thinking, since you wanted the story, the bottom tier would be where you two meet and fall in love, the second tier would be Cole proposing, and the third tier be your wedding".
"That's perfect", I say, glancing over at Cole for approval. He smiles at me. "We were also wondering if we could have one of those cupcake cakes on the side, for the guests. Would that be possible?"
"Oh, of course", Clara says, turning to the third page of the packet. "So, I'm guessing you want a cupcake for each guest, so I can do five tiers of forty cupcakes each, you can choose up to five flavors".
"Perfect", Cole says before I can.
Clara smiles at us before getting up from the table. "Let's get to tasting then".
Clara walks behind the counter and brings out a tray of at least twenty different cakes, all about a square inch big. "So, I have twenty four flavors, you don't have to try all of them if you know you wouldn't like the flavor, and you can pretty much try as many flavors as you want".
Cole and I both decide to eliminate the three lemon flavors, the banana, and the white cake. That leaves us with 19 more cakes. We start with the four different chocolate ones. A dark chocolate with an amaretto mocha frosting, Amazing; Devils food cake with buttercream, Too much of a chocolate flavor; a chocolate chip cake with chocolate buttercream; the buttercream has a strange flavor; and the regular chocolate cake with a cream cheese icing; the chocolate didn't really go with the cream cheese.
Next is the vanilla cakes with different fillings and icings. There's seven of them. The first is a vanilla and cherry marble cake with a white chocolate buttercream; to die for. Definitely on my list; a vanilla/chocolate marble cake with a silk buttercream icing; good, not my favorite. We go on to try the other five, and I've picked out my others.
Cole doesn't have a huge preference, so he's helping very little, but I get it out of him that he loved the dark chocolate cake and the vanilla/cherry cake. I've gotten my list down to eight, and I want to only pick five.
"So, what will it be?" Clara asks me.
"I think it will be the vanilla cherry marble cake, the dark chocolate cake, the almond amaretto cake, the hazelnut chocolate cake, and the regular vanilla cake".
"Sounds perfect".
YOU ARE READING
The Day Has Come (Counting on Hockey #4)
Storie d'amoreSo, the day of Meredith's new job has come. She's officially a journalist for the Minnesota Wild, the NHL hockey team. She's also the girlfriend of six years to Cole Anderson, second line center, for the Wild. She's the head journalist, which comes...
