Cakes boss, seriously!

Who doesn't like cake? I've loved cake since I was a child. I used to really like those Monginis' slice cakes. Well, it was what you could call convenient vegetarianism to kinda say that eggs were ok in cakes/ chocolates! No complaints about that in hindsight. Cakes don't particularly have any nutrition value. They are full of butter, white flour, sugar... but their happiness value is amazingly high! The very sight of a cake can light up any child's face. I remember going to all those birthday parties as a child and waiting with baited breath for the arrival of the birthday cake/s; the bigger, the more colourful, the more specialized ones like the ones with cool Disney characters, or a house etc. would really make my eyes pop much to the embarrassment of my mom who would've already fore-warned me about containing my excitement and not behaving like I had never seen cake in my life before! Kids will be kids; I think my mom learned it the hard way!
My sister enjoyed fancy birthday cakes more so for her birthday parties! She loved all birthday parties and I never particularly enjoyed my own birthday parties but hers were different, I really looked forward to them and her excitement was only contagious! One of the most memorable cakes was the one she had for her (I think) 9th birthday which was a replica of a zoo with a big chocolate fence around! We kept sneaking more and more pieces of the fence in between all those party games and hoping nobody would discover who was being the glutton!
Then there was a weird phase in my life when I started falling sick every time I ate chocholate! I was heart-broken! My parents insisted I was allergic to chocolate and my family physician encouraged them :( So, it's not like I was going to give up cake. I gravitated towards pineapple pastries! Then there was junior college where a good bunch of friends would never forget to get me a pineapple pastry while they dug into some gooey Dutch truffle from Croissants etc. I also discovered strawberry pastries but I became a pineapple loyalist! Then I decided to become a little adventurous; I decided to desensitize myself. Whether it was the Australian chocolates or the fact that my immune system had become more mature and thoughtful , I am not so sure but I just loaded my system with chocolate and the chocolate cake and voila, I returned in style to the world of chocolate and my favourite cakes!
Yesterday, I saw Cake Boss, the most interesting cake-based show I have ever seen. Actually, I hadn't seen any show which revolved around having your cake and eating it too! I was amazed. So, this show is about this old-style family-run cake shop "Carlo's Bake Shop" in New Jersey. It's not just about specialty cakes but about "mia famiglia" and these amazing passionate people who you can't imagine would be able to do anything else but bring joy to the world with their artistic sweet creations! Of course, like any reality show worth its salt, there was enough drama to prevent an overdose of sweetness! Whether it was Buddy (the boss) playing pranks on his decorators, bakers, delivery guys or meeting impossible deadlines, or his mother throwing a fit about some erotic cakes or somebody dropping a very fancy multiple tiered sweet 16 cake and the whole team fixing that in a little over an hour, there’s enough to chew on! The show revolves around a couple of defy-your imagination designer cakes. Whether it was a cake in the honour of a newly discovered fossil of one of the oldest mammals on earth (now at the American museum of Natural history in New York city), or a real-life size roulette table for a local Italian social club, or the cake for the tenth anniversary of a local beach club celebrating the quintessential beach with beach bums; or a cake inspired by the Schwartz’s toy store for the birthday party of 4 year old twins; or the ultimate wedding cake with two doves seated between the tiers of a five-tiered elegant cake (which Buddy said was something his dad used to do, very traditional) or a box full of sweet surprises for an expecting mom filled with cannolis, lobster tails with pink cream or a 3-D replica of a local children's hospital logo for a charity event (which was supposed to be only a couple of sheet cakes at first) or a very repulsive zombie cake complete with dismembered limbs, rats and blood for a zombie fest....I could go on and on about the diversity and what can be made out of a pounds and pounds of cake besides love handles, dimples in the wrong places, unflattering derrieres to name a few! Then there are the special family- occasion cakes which just bring the whole big Italian family together and needless to say leave you with a sweet feeling towards the end of the show! It starts with a "cake consultation" and takes you through the fondant, dirty ice, edible flowers and figurines and people who bake together and eat together! A lot of couz (short for cousin), a lot of yelling and laughing! Man, the world of cakes has never been better! I am hooked :) and I am not even a baker, simply because I don't think I can be thaaat liberal with butter or sugar :)
Check the show out-http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/cake-boss/cake-boss.html

Whether it's to celebrate an occasion or just to pamper yourself, there's nothing like a slice of good cake or at least an episode of a good cake-based show (if you want to be just a little more/ less indulgent depending upon how much you end up whetting your appetite for some cake like now, now!).