reviews and stuff

My first book, Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 14th, 2009. Since then, I've been a busy cake lady. I'll post links to book-related events and articles here from time to time.

Here's my current calendar. On Mother's Day, I'll be live on KGO Radio's "A Matter of Taste," from San Francisco, on Mother's Day from 11:30 to 12:00, so you can listen if you're a left coaster. Sometime soon, my interviews with NPR's "A Chef's Table" and Silver Chair Books will go live. Check out "The Signal," on WYPR, this Friday, as I'll be reading about my grandmother. Then, Saturday, May 15 at 5:00 p.m., I'll be reading with three fantastic writers—for twelve minutes each!—at Minas in Hampden.


Five of many podcasts are up. You can hear them in the player below.



"She Takes the Cake" in the Baltimore Jewish Times

Baltimore's READ IT

Stuff Style Loves

The Cake Lady on a post card, by the great Michael Kimball

Cakespy gives me away

Jezebel blurbed

Cold Mud blurbed

Author is unabashedly smitten with cake" in the Deseret News

Mostly NF review

No Titles wants more

I'm a Nonfictionist

Cake on "Daybreak"

B More Sweet likes me!

Mark Scarbrough calls me "The Aquinas of Cake" at Real Food Has Curves

"Woman is consumed by a passion for cakes" in the Baltimore Sun

Shelf Awareness

Diana Page Jordon's review

Another radio player, just in case:

let me talk about Let Me Eat Cake

I've been having lots of fun the past week or so, talking to radio hosts and reporters. Today, in fact, I'm going to tape an interview on A Chef's Table in Philadelphia. Yesterday, I taped a WYPR "Maryland Morning" interview with Tom Hall, which will air next Wednesday morning.

Coming up this weekend, I'll be at the CityLit Festival on a panel with Warren Brown of CakeLove; Mary K. Zajac is the moderator. We're in the former Maryland Room (maybe now called Office of School and Student Services?) at 11:00 a.m. Sunday, I read in Bel Air, at the Barnes & Noble, at about 4:00 p.m. with other readers, so come early! Finally, I have a signing at the Red Canoe, April 25th, at 4:00.

Below are a couple of radio interviews.

sometimes my husband believes what I tell him, especially now that it's in a book

My husband picked up a very heavy and very fluorescent Key Lime Pie Cheesecake from Costco yesterday. Despite its vividness, I can tell it tastes delicious. OK, I can tell because I might have stuck my finger in it a little.

This afternoon, my husband cut pieces for him and my daughter. Rather than let my family and their dessert taunt me, I took my cottage cheese and fruit into the living room.

"You know, cheesecake is actually pie," Marty said to Serena.

"It is?" she said, as if it had never occurred to her, despite my having said it a thousand times over the last three years.

"That's right. It's crust and filling." He paused. And in another spectacular teaching moment, he continued, "And Boston Cream Pie is really cake."

[silence]

[eating sounds]

Re: re: re: re: The Book

I live in the city’s best middle-class neighborhood. Restaurants; ice cream parlors; knitting, book, and liquor stores; and a beautiful hairdid are all within walking distance, and the purveyors are friends—if not before, certainly now.

Like any resourceful community, we have our own discussion group on the interwebs. Some people use the forum a little too much, forwarding emails about virus hoaxes and warnings to “NEVER LICK AN ENVELOPE.” (Messages from those special senders go right in my spam folder.) Sometimes subject lines contain misspellings or typos, which survive through repeated Replies To All, even after I reply with the correction and beg it be adopted. Most often neighbors ask if anyone knows what was going on at such-and-such intersection or what crime involved police on their block last night. We also have plenty of warnings about daytime burglars and teens casing houses.

My favorite emails involve bird and wildlife sightings (we've had owls and deer, and I found a flicker on my phone pole the other day.) This is one of the best parts of our community. But one of the worst parts is the increase in crime. This morning's email informed us that a beloved café was burglarized last night.

Recently a debate erupted over fines for loose dogs and then the issue of roaming cats, and it seemed to go on for weeks. Every time I woke up in the morning, I had five emails with “Re: re: re: re: Roaming Cats.” (What? Erase the extraneous Res?) The debate went something like this: Cats should not be allowed to roam. Cats roam; it’s what they do. You control your cat; he doesn’t control you. Cats roam; it’s what they do. Well, if you love your cat, you’ll keep him inside. My cat wants to roam; keeping him in is tantamount to torture.

Yesterday I found one of those roaming cats. His coat was shiny, and he was beautiful and all lovey-dovey—obviously someone’s pet. He was in my front yard for an hour, and I almost sent an email to the list about the Roaming Cat, but I couldn’t make myself stir that debate again. I just wanted to say that pet roaming cats need a collar, because this one was going to join my family. (I would give him a collar and let him go out!)

Last week, a neighbor I know wrote to the list against a new topic du jour but retitled her subject: “Speed Cameras NOT kitty cats.” She ended with some PR for me: “We all should be talking about Leslie's new book, anyway!” The debate continued, sans Book, even after my friend’s second attempt and my own reply (against speed cameras but pro The Book).

And speaking of neighbors and The Book: if you want the greatest muffin in the free world, you’ll find it at the Red Canoe on Harford Road. I talk about that muffin in the introduction to The Book, which is featured in twentiplicate on a table in the front. Grab one before it's gone!