Did you know Stephen King’s media empire includes an alternative radio station? It lulled me into a false sense of security with a stream of old faves and then bludgeoned me with the horrific revelation that Cake (of “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” fame) did a cover of Gloria Gaynor’s anthemic “I Will Survive.”
They, as the kids say, did not understand the assignment.
I felt seen by Annalee Newitz on Mastodon:
This may explain my visceral loathing of cake decorating. At least when I spend hours squashing my brain writing, nobody masticates my struggle into oblivion minutes later.
Cake should be served bare with frosting in a self-serve bowl.
I did go unusually overboard decorating this pie, though.
My oven is “eccentric.” It’s impossible to get a pie crust thoroughly cooked without blind baking, even for fill-and-bake pies. This means, however, that you can’t pinch a top crust to the already-baked edge. Crumble toppings are my go-to solution, but since I had to scatter crust, cherry pitting, and assembly over 3 days anyway, why not add hand-cut leaves to the time suck?
The lattice was a small pane in the center. Two rings of freestyle leaves filled the gap to the edge. I cut out the cherries with a bottle cap and dented one side with a spoon handle for verisimilitude.
I’ll never put this much cosmetic effort into a pie again (I’m more of a “rustic galette” person), but it was a fun art project.
Speaking of fun art projects, I was worried about what I would put on the back of my bespoke tarot cards. Turns out vector mandalas are relatively easy to make.
This experiment is probably too busy to print cleanly, but at least I learned the process for future attempts.
These were just random squiggles to fill in the space. For the real deal, I’d like to pull in some stylistic elements from the art on the front of the cards. They’ll look like random squiggles at a glance, but I’ll feel like there’s a more cohesive vibe with my childish drawings than this fancy chrysanthemum.
I just need a much larger assortment of stylistic elements to choose from before I can test what a terrible idea that is!
