Cupcake Couture

My local is my apartment: my bit of me in a city where the individual is so often forgotten. Not being from Toronto, I obviously haven’t identified this city as my home.

This building has 34 floors, 14 units per floor (fewer on the penthouse floors). This equates to a population that rivals some of the villages near my hometown in Southwestern Ontario. Since I wouldn’t and shouldn’t go door-to-door introducing myself as “your friendly neighbour from 17 floors down,” I’ve had to find out more about my make-shift community in other ways. This has namely involved poking my head into garbage and recycling receptacles for a glimpse into the everyday of the society around me.

This is downtown dumpster diving.

I discover this Bakery18 box among other recyclable items. Bakery18 is a downtown bakery that produces traditional Chinese BBQ pork, curry and red-bean paste buns, among other flavours. Bakeries in Toronto’s Chinatown have been baking these buns, albeit reportedly greasier and cheaper, for some time now. Was there really a market for high-end versions of these Chinese buns?

This reminds me of another story I saw last week in the National Post. A cupcake store has just opened in Mississauga, Ont. A freakin’ cupcake store. The bakery biz really has hit new couture heights. Anyway, cupcake stands are apparently super trendy in New York City, says the store owner in the article, because cupcakes are easily transported and are smaller portion sizes than other snack foods. I’d better patent the cupcake diet ASAP.

High-end cupcakes and buns? So, over one arm you have a leather Louis Vuitton, your shiny pink iPod nano is firmly grasped in one hand and a fresh, pink frosted cupcake sits in the other. Isn’t that cute.

It’s a reflection on the better, bigger, quicker world we are living in. Why have a normal cupcake created by granny when you can buy a designer one on the corner and get it in a bag or box stamped with the logo of said store. There really is no better way to flaunt your status among the upper echelon of cuisine aficionados.

It’s no secret we are a society that is susceptible to advertising. We adore material goods, the sleeker and more “new and improved” the better. If something as simple, as innocent as a cupcake or bun can make the move to status object, what could be next? Designer flower stands? High-end piggy banks? I mean, when will the television be big enough? When will there be enough special features built into automobiles?

It seems there is no limit to what the human race will consume and to what we will pay to do so.