Good For What Ails You

For the past four weeks, give or take, My Beloved has been in bed with the stubborn residue of an ear infection that has left my usually vigorous and cheerful sweetheart down on power and down in the mouth. Day after day of feeling listless and dizzy will do that.

Chilebrown told me about a butcher in Alameda that carries local, organic and sustainable meats and, when I got there, lo and behold, the market also featured baked goods from the Feel Good Bakery. I decided that this was a sign from Heaven; a sweet treat might perk up My Beloved's day and I was sure it would do wonders for mine.

I chose a lemon cupcake and an amazing-looking carrot cake "sandwich" with cream cheese icing between layers of moist carrot cake. We split them, as we often do, because we each wanted a taste.

Oh, yeah!

The icing was the best part of the cupcake, rich buttercream icing colored gaily and loaded with real bits of lemon zest for flavor. The best treat, however, was the carrot cake sandwich. The crumb was moist and light and filled with carroty bits. The icing was distinctly sour-among-the-sweet - we could really taste the cream cheese. If they had added nuts, it would have been sublime; as it was, it was good for what ails you and made us both feel much, much better.