No. 11 || Give them stuffing to talk about . . .
Whether we're talking about being stuffed to the brim, stuffing things in other things, or how to tell someone to get stuffed, it's all obviously related to this issue's theme, Thanksgiving - duh!
Dear Readers & Cake Eaters,
Apologies for falling off the map a bit! My hands have been tied between my trip to NY and getting everything ready to roll out a brand new project this Friday - stay tuned, you will be hearing from me again! (I’M VERY EXCITED!)
BUT never fear, I’m back just in time for a Thanksgiving themed issue!
For those of you that are new here, the format of The Cakewalk is organized like a Menu - we have Appetizers (News), À La Carte (Shopping), Main Course (Deeper dives or “food for thought”), Desserts (Recs, Culture, Events, etc.), & Digestifs (The Funnies!). Now that I have the paywall turned on - you can expect the Appetizers and À La Carte sections to remain available to everyone! These two sections alone are already very long but if you’re wondering what more you could possibly get by paying to subscribe, I’m keeping my previous issues free so that you can get an idea! :) The Happy Hour Specials will most likely be the freebie issues, and in even more exciting news, I’ll be introducing a new interview series next week called The Caketalk where I interview and eat cake with fascinating people who deserve your attention. Did you expect anything else? Lolz.
Anyways, lots and lots of goodies coming your way my friends - I sure hope you’re hungry! Now let’s dig in!
xo
THE CAKEWALK - WEEKLY SPECIALS MENU
Wednesday, November 20th, 2024
Appetizers

Baskin Robbins’ highly anticipated Turkey (Ice Cream) Cake is back once again! For those unfamiliar, this ice cream cake is “decorated with iconic sugar cone legs and covered in caramel praline glaze, Baskin-Robbins’ exclusive take on a roasted turkey is made to look like it is cooked to perfection but is packed with the ice cream flavor of your choice.” Available for a limited time only. I want it so bad but alas, no such thing exists in Paris unless I decided to make it myself. One of these days . . .

Milk Bar’s famed Thanksgiving Croissant has also made a comeback and is available in their NYC, DC, and LA bakeries. Honestly? They sound brilliant.
KFC teamed up with Homesick Candles to bring us two new candle scents, Bucket of Chicken and Buttery Biscuit just in time for the Holidays because 1) Why the f*ck not, we’re living in a simulation anyways and 2) Nothing says ‘Tis the Season like KFC scented candles lolz. Both candles are sold out on KFC’s website but are seemingly still available on Homesick’s website so you can try your luck HERE but hurry before some other fool (probably me) gets to them before you.
And if you’re REALLY curious, the Bucket of Chicken supposedly smells like: ‘Top Notes: Chicken, Browned Flour; Mid Notes: Peppercorn, Celery; Base Notes: Oregano, Sage, Garlic” while the Buttery Biscuit supposedly smells like: “Top Notes: Golden Honey, Baked Flour; Mid Notes: Caramel, Margarine, Salt; Base Notes: Buttermilk, Toasted Vanilla”. Enjoy?
Kate Spade x M&M’s Holiday Collection - “Kate Spade New York and M&M’s came together for a limited-edition collaboration just in time for the upcoming holiday season. The clothing and lifestyle brand and the chocolate candy treat introduce a selection of jewelry pieces and accessories to add pops of color and playfulness to any ensemble.” In case you forgot, Kate Spade teamed up with Heinz over the summer for an iconic ketchup collection and it seems like they’re keeping up this food collab winning streak which I am all for (just maybe not so much my bank account). You can shop this M&M’s collab both on the M&M’s store website or the Kate Spade site - product availability varies on each one.
Rachel Antonoff x Pepperidge Farm have teamed up to bring us an exclusive holiday cookie jar collection featuring 4 different colors - each one representing a different iconic Pepperidge Farm Cookie. Gold for the Chessman, Winter Blue for the Linzer Cookie, Classic Red for Milano Peppermint Slices (my fav), and Evergreen for Thin & Crispy Peppermint Cocoa Cookies. Each jar retails for $50 and honestly, that’s a pretty solid gift for any fashion x foodie friend if you ask me.

“Pizza Hut Is Selling a 'Tomato Wine' — and It's Meant to Taste Just Like Pizza” reports Food & Wine. “According to Pizza Hut, it's made from "ripe, juicy tomatoes and infused with natural basil," made in partnership with Irvine's Just Beyond Paradise Winery, a family-owned vineyard in Kansas. The wine, the chain added, "offers an aromatic blend of fresh herbs and spices with rich, sun-ripened tomato notes and a subtle hint of toasted oak — reminiscent of a perfectly baked pizza crust." You can get the wine for $25 however there’s a 2 bottle minimum purchase, otherwise there’s also a gift set going for $60 and they’re only available to purchase with Irvine Winery. I’m sure this’ll go quick.

Grillo’s Pickles x Boka Toothpaste - there are just some things you can’t make up. “Boka has teamed up with Grillo’s Pickles to create a one-of-a-kind flavor sensation. Why you’ll love it:
A briny, sweet, and tangy flavor that’s surprisingly refreshing
Fluoride-free, dentist-approved formula with nano-hydroxyapatite to remineralize teeth and support enamel health
Perfect for pickle lovers, dental health enthusiasts, and anyone craving the wild and unexpected”
Well gang, what are y’all waiting for?! Go get those pearly whites all brined up and let me know what you think lolz. A tube goes for $13 or get a 2-pack and save 8% lolz. Buy it HERE.

ICYMI, Sweetgreen released merch and had everyone’s favorite elderly style couple, Aki and Koichi star in the campaign. One of the highlighted pieces is their “Kale Camo Hoodie” but in case you REALLY missed it, the real news that’s buzzing at the moment is how Sweetgreen supposedly stole the “Kale Camo” concept from Michael Cherman aka streetstyle brand, Market Studios formerly known as Chinatown Market. Cherman actually pitched the exact idea to Sweetgreen about a year ago but never heard back and figured it was just the brand passing on the idea, only to be hit with news about this campaign so he took to the streets of Instagram to call them out and posted screenshots of their previous emails. Thoughts? Comments? Prayers?
Founder of APC, Jean Touitou is venturing into natural wine - “Natural wine had made its way onto the Touitou table through a side route. A drinker of fine wine, he viewed the natural wine world as snobby. But when his wife, Judith, the creative director of A.P.C., became violently allergic to wine, his son Pierre, a chef who now owns the Paris restaurant 19 Saint-Roch, suggested they visit their Pantelleria neighbor, Gabrio Bini, a respected maker of natural wine. The switch worked.” Read the full NYT article by Christine Muhlke HERE.
Last week, Louis Vuitton opened Le Café Louis Vuitton in NYC - the very “first of its kind” in the US. Helmed by an all-star cast - Christophe Bellanca as executive chef and Mary George as the Executive Pastry Chef. Not sure what else to tell you since I haven’t been but if it’s anything like the one in Paris, be prepared to pay a pretty penny for a lot of LV monogrammed foods and a inevitably, probably a couple of annoyingly tasty treats. Read more about it in this very detailed article from Resy! Inside of LV’s 57th St. flagship you’ll also find Le Chocolat Maxime Frederic where you can get your hands on various LV shaped chocolates and other treats like their jar of choco hazelnut spread that was only being sold in Paris for a while and people were flipping for about $500 on eBay lolllz. Honestly, the LV Chocolate shop opening in NY is a very cool thing for the US, the goodies make the best presents. I’m just mad that it can no longer be my go-to gift when visiting friends in NY because well, they have one too now lolz.
À La Carte
So as mentioned above, the À La Carte section has now been moved up as everything below here will be paywalled! For this issue, I ended up only looking at Holiday Sweaters (Thanksgiving/Fall themed of course!) because there are so so many good ones out in the world and they need homes! Which has got me thinking, maybe this section will only be holiday sweater themed when it’s the holidays because there are SO many ones to choose from. But then again, we’ll see how I feel, lolz. Enjoy!
Vintage Tiara International Autumn/Thanksgiving Sweater Vest - Large
Vintage Eagle’s Eye Leaves & Turkey Cardigan - Size Small Petite
Vintage Eagle’s Eye Thanksgiving Pilgrim Bear Sweater - Size L
Vintage Heirloom Collectibles Thanksgiving Cardigan - Women's Medium
Main Course
*** Howdy Paid Readers & Cake Eaters! Moving forward you will find the audio version here. I have to skip for this issue as I have too much on my plate but promise it’ll be back for the next! ***

One of SF’s finest pastry chefs now feeds the Tenderloin for free by Rachel Levin
In the hustle and bustle of living in any major city, it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day and operate almost as if you have blinders on just to get from point A to point B. I know such is true for myself. I always tell myself that I should “make more time” for things that matter and “pay more attention" to the finer details that are passing me by and yet, I still always somehow end up with “not enough time”.
During Covid I started volunteering with my local food shelter in Paris called Les Restaurants Du Coeur to help distribute meals to those in the neighborhood that need some extra help. (This organization is in every Paris neighborhood if you want to check it out.) This was only 2, maybe 3 hours of my Wednesday night every week and while it wasn’t much, it was enough to give me a different outlook on my neighborhood and the people I was serving that are actually my neighbors - some of which I would even occasionally pass in the streets. We tend to have preconceived notions of people we don’t know, we may even make up little stories of what we think their life is like - but to see familiar neighborhood faces pop up in the least likely place I would have assumed to cross paths with them, really gave me a different perspective. Having access to food is every human’s fundamental right. Food is what we all have in common even if nothing else. Whether it’s purely for survival, or perhaps for pleasure, food is not to be taken for granted.
Something as simple as walking into a cafe to order a coffee and a pastry (a daily ritual even for some), without the risk of being judged and/or asked to leave is for some people, actually an absolute luxury, especially in a city like San Francisco where the economic disparity is sky-high. But famed SF pastry chef, Michelle Polzine knows this and is helping to provide a space where absolutely anyone can walk in an enjoy a wonderful, quality pastry with a cup of coffee, free of charge, and feel at home without any risks of judgement or being shooed away.
“Michelle Polzine closed her beloved 20th Century Café mid-Covid. Now she’s baking for anyone who needs a free meal.”
“At typical soup kitchens, patrons are treated as numbers — bodies that are counted and hurried in and out. Here, customers are referred to as guests and are intentionally, repeatedly, called by name. Essentially, the experience is the opposite of what often happens to these same people at other cafés around the city: getting kicked out.”
“We’re so lucky,” says the homeless man in a wheelchair. “A hot cup of coffee. A Michelin-star pastry chef.” (Actually, a three-time Beard nominee, but still.)
A café regular, named John said, “This place makes you feel like you’re in a real restaurant. It makes you feel like a person again.” Polzine gets it. Finally, she too feels something she hasn’t in a while: whole. “I can figure out how to live on no money,” she says. “But I can’t live any longer feeling undervalued.”” I think about those very few weeks I spent volunteering often, and I keep telling myself that I need to get back to it but life has a way of making constant excuses. This article reminded me to stop mulling it over and just get back to it. Genuine, shared experiences within the context of helping and seeing the community firsthand are so far and few in between these days but believe me, it’s so incredibly worth it.
Why Cakes Can Be a Powerful Form of Protest by Jenny Comita - T Magazine
“Today a new generation of protest bakers — making cakes in support of rights once again under threat — are interested less in appeasement than in subverting a symbol of domestic labor, in the style of second-wave feminist artists like Mary Kelly, who has used dirty diapers and laundry lint in her work.”
“In Virginia, the baker Arley Bell, 34, posts pastel buttercream-slathered layer cakes inscribed with the names of police violence victims on her Instagram page (@arley.cakes), offering to send the sweets to followers who donate to GoFundMe campaigns for victims’ families. “It’s not just about a pretty cake,” she says. “The real beauty is in the action I’m trying to inspire.””
“Raising money through baking is an act of defiance against feminine stereotypes,” says Paola Velez, a 33-year-old Washington, D.C.-based pastry chef”. This article was another prime example of taking meaningful and significant action through food - there are endless ways to do it. Supporting/fighting for a cause doesn’t always have to mean something angry and unpleasant. And at a time when things like Cake Picnic - an event that inspires entire communities to get together in different cities over something as simple as the love of cake - are gaining so much momentum, there’s proof that it’s not that hard to get people motivated to participate. It just takes someone to organize it. And some cake certainly doesn’t hurt. . . With everything that’s happening at the moment, I’m hoping to see more bake sales and things of that nature. Protesting and raising money for important causes through baking seems very poetic. It’s a beautiful approach - it feels gentle all while still remaining powerful and impactful. I’m not saying protesting needs to be gentle - it can be anything you need it to be. But in a world that’s already pretty violent and ugly, it’s nice to see that sweet and beautiful things can also do the work.
Desserts
ART & CULTURE-ings - The History of the Dessert Exhibit at Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague, Netherlands - 23 November 2024 till 06 April 2025.
One of my icons, Ivan Patrick Day is kicking off opening weekend of this exhibit with 3 different lectures. I wish more than anything that I could be going this weekend and believe me, I DID look up trains and hotels but ultimately, it just would not have been a very intelligent move on my part. I really hope they record the lectures. All that to say, this is supposedly one of the biggest exhibits on desserts in quite some time so give it a visit if you get the chance. You have until April of next year and you better believe I’ll be going at some point!
RECIPE-INGS - HelloFresh teamed up with Friends to bring us Rachel Green’s (In)Famous Thanksgiving Trifle BUT as the limited time product has already sold out on their website BUT they’ve graced us with the recipe so we can make the blasphemous item ourselves! Link to the recipe is here. Please do report back if you make an attempt at it.
QUESTION-ings?? - I just genuinely want to know - have ANY of you ever actually had a Turducken? This monstrosity of a concoction is the very epitome of why other countries can’t take Americans seriously lolz. What is a Turducken my non-American friends might ask? Well my friends, it is a Chicken, stuffed inside of a Duck, stuffed inside of a Turkey. And it sounds like the the last level you need to unlock before going to Thanksgiving Hell. . . or is it Heaven? Anyways, for those curious and motivated enough to make it, here’s a youtube video.

VINTAGE LOLZ-ings - “14 Thanksgiving Tips for Ladies From Vintage Ads”
Nothing like vintage ads geared towards trad-wife life. Imagery is 10/10 though.
Digestif
“In 2023, DiGiorno’s Thanksgiving Pizza made headlines for its eclectic combination of all the traditional Turkey Day elements piled atop one frozen pizza: roasted turkey, gravy, cranberries, green beans, sweet potatoes, crispy onions, and both mozzarella and cheddar cheese on a Detroit-style crust. The idea is to make those Thanksgiving foods more easily accessible and not to relegate them to one day out of the year.” - Food & Wine. Well folks, the Thanksgiving pizza is back and is only available at Kroger-owned stores for those looking.

Thanksgiving “Sushi” Roll by a fav account of mine, The Vulgar Chef. He also made a Thanksgiving Ramen and honestly, I’d whole heartedly eat both.
Brach’s Candy Corn but make it Thanksgiving Dinner version. The flavors are: Cranberry, Green Bean, Stuffing, Roast Turkey, Apple Pie, & Coffee but at some point had the last two swapped with Sweet Potato Pie and Ginger Glazed Carrots? The fact that they existed long enough to have a lineup change is laughable. I’ve never managed to get my hands on these and I’m pretty sure they’ve since been discontinued although never say never in this day and age. Some of the best things to come from this blasphemous creation however, are peoples’ reviews. Here are two of my fav - one from PopSugar (it’s hilarious and is a “brutally honest review”) and the other one is from MassLive. I would def try tho.
FIN!
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