Taking Short Cake Hunts for Granted – Grant’s Farm #153

Oh hello there. I’m happy to see you. It’s been a while since we’ve had an adventure together, hasn’t it? Not to worry, let’s settle in and see where this one takes us.

It was a well practiced practice of Cake Monster to try to squeeze as many cake adventures into one day as possible. There were days when Mr. Miles James and Cake Monster saw upwards of 10 cakes in just one trip! But on this day, this beautiful cake hunting day, things were a little different.

Mercutio Krispytreats and Cake Monster began the cake hunt with the cake at Grant’s Farm on the Ulysses S Grant National Historic Site.

History lesson real quick: Grant’s farm is built on land that was given to Ulysses and his wife Julia by her father as a wedding present in 1848. The main attraction is a large animal reserve that is free to the public and contains a variety of animals from camels, goats and peacocks to buffalo and elephants. Also on the property is a cabin, built by Grant in 1856, called ‘Hardscrabble’ that is the only remaining structure built by hand by a president before coming into office.

Now let’s talk cake locations. Most of the cakes I had seen prior to this adventure were usually in front of the site or within close walking distance of the location. But with this one…was it possible that Cake Monster did not know that this cake was actually inside Grant’s Farm? That a train ride, a brisk walk, and possibly a free beer were needed to spy this beautiful site? Was Cake Monster going to drive all the way to Grant’s Farm and not feed baby goats? All motives are now lost to the sands of time, but needless to say, this cake required some extra adventure.

On the train ride in, while listening to our guide share the history of the Farm, we spied many majestic animals, and Cake Monster was only mildly terrified of them approaching her and eating her arm off.

Once inside the Farm, it was imperative to feed the baby goats as Cake Monster had heard this was a requirement for attaining the cake.

It was also important to converse with other wildlife along the way.

All to finally reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Cake #153 at Grant’s Farm

With free beers in hand, we took in the beauty of the cake and reflected on the adventure we had taken to get to that point. And just as Mercutio was sure we’d be done for the day, I provided a Cake Monster eye twinkle and shrug that surely meant more adventure was on the way.

Friends, Fireworks and Finding Cakes – St. Louis Art Museum #152

                                                                                                               Cake #152 at the St. Louis Art Museum

Two important rules of cake hunting: never give up and never pass up an opportunity to see a cake when you know one’s around. The first rule applies to pretty much every cake I’ve seen (especially those in Illinois) that isn’t exactly right at the spot I thought it would be and is pretty much tried and true at this point. The other rule is a little harder to put into action – it requires some stealth, a little pleading and a whole lot of luck.

                                                                                                      Cake #152 at the St. Louis Art Museum

And as luck would have it, part of our 4th of July celebration that year involved a spectacular fireworks display on the lawn of the one and only St. Louis Art Museum which just so happened to be the home of Cake #152!

The Museum was started in 1879 as part of Washington University and lived downtown. After the 1904 World’s Fair, the Museum moved to the Palace of Fine Arts where it resides today. The collection of art at the Museum – which includes over 30,000 pieces – is divided into eleven categories which cover a wide range of types of art to explore, admire and take pics with Mercutio Krispytreats next to.

 

The Museum is free and open to the public, and I highly recommend spending a day getting lost in its halls and corridors looking at art from around the world.

 

And all in all, I’d say any time you can see a cake, enjoy time with friends and end the day with fireworks is a quality day in my book!

Banking on Books – Left Bank Books #151

                                                                                                            Cake #151 at Left Bank Books

I wish I could remember how I first heard about Left Bank Books, but have you ever just come to enjoy something so much that the origin just kind of fades into your history with the place as if you always just kinda knew about that place, and you just knew to go there as if by magic? That’s how it is for me with Left Bank Books.

At the time of the cake hunt, to me, Left Bank Books was (and still is) an awesome independent bookstore with an awesome story that sold awesome books that I frequented from time to time.

Quick history lesson: Left Bank Books was created in 1969 by a group of graduate students from Washington University. To this day it remains the oldest and largest independently-owned bookstore in St. Louis. But Left Bank is so much more than just a place that sells books – they put on more than 300 events a year (many of them free – suh-weet!) and partner with nonprofit organizations to bring books to kids who might not have access to them – like I said, all around awesome 🙂

Personally, my love affair with Left Bank Books really began when I started attending a horror book club called Reader Beware there at Christmastime a few years ago when I wanted to read Christmas horror (it’s a thing) but didn’t know where to start. From those humble book club beginnings where the moderator and I would sit and talk about everything from comics to movies (and books too) to the current club that now even includes Mr. Mercutio Krispytreats and continues to grow. I’ve also attended several events they have run including a reading held at an old prison – an unexpectedly wonderful surprise.

All this to say, there’s something special about a bookstore you can call home, and I believe I have found mine.

Cake #151 at Left Bank Books

P.S. If you’re interested in learning more about some of the books we’ve read in our book club, check out my blog The Books of One Stack for some pretty sweet reviews.

Still Chasing the Dream – Chase Park Plaza #150

                                                                                         Cake #150 at the Chase Park Plaza

As I pulled up to the Chase Park Plaza to see the cake, it was hard to believe that it was in fact Cake #150 right there in front of me. While I knew then (and still recognize now writing about all of them), I still had a long way to go to get to my goal of seeing all the cakes, it felt good to hit a milestone like this one.

For some quick history: The Chase Hotel was built in 1922 by Chase Ullman. In 1929 Sam Koplar built the Park Plaza Hotel, and in 1947 the two hotels were merged to create the Chase Park Plaza.

Fun fact: Before the two hotels merged, there was an underground system of tunnels that connected one building to the other supposedly as an easy way for staff to travel from one building to the next, but there is evidence that rich patrons would use the tunnels to get from party to party and the tunnels were great places to hide booze during Prohibition…sneaky, sneaky!

Over the years, the Chase Park Plaza has been host to numerous entertainment events including a weekly wrestling tournament and the Miss. America Pageant in 1956. It’s also believed that every president from the 1920s to the 1980s stayed at the Chase at some point during their presidency.

                                                                                                                Cake #150 at the Chase Park Plaza 

While the hotel closed for a short time in the late 80s and early 90s, it was reopened in 1999 and is currently on the National Register of Historic Places.

At the time Miles and I visited the Chase, it was merely a pretty sweet final destination for a cake hunting day well spent, but in the time since that adventure, the Chase has become a popular haunt for Mercutio Krispytreats and myself due to their $5 movie nights (oh yeah, they’ve got a movie theater inside!). There really is nothing like walking up the steps to the Chase and seeing the name of the movie you’re about to enjoy on the huge marquee out front….and then getting trapped in their revolving door (but that’s a story for another time). 🙂

 

Cupcakes in the Street, Crystals, and a Crypt – Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis #149

                                                                Cake #149 at the Cathedral Basilica

Do you ever just get a song stuck in your head like all day? I will admit that when thinking back on this cake adventure and coming up with a title for this blog post, the one song that kept replaying in my head was “Dancing in the Street” and so with a little twist to the title of the song, here we are 🙂

                                                                  Cathedral Basilica

The original goal of this particular stop on our cake hunt was to see Cake #149 at the Cathedral Basilica (otherwise known as the New Cathedral), so let’s start there with a little history and mind-blowing facts.

The idea for this cathedral was hatched all the way back in the 1870s and ’80s, but it wasn’t until May 1st, 1907 that a ground breaking ceremony was had and construction started.

                                                               Cake #149 at the Cathedral Basilica

By 1914 enough of the cathedral was completed to hold a dedication ceremony although the cathedral was not consecrated until 1926 (Catholic stuff, you know).

One of the most interesting features of the cathedral are the mosaics. Apparently the final tile of the final mosaic was not laid until 1988(!), and there are approximately 41.5 million pieces of glass around the cathedral creating the astonishing artwork and making the Cathedral Basilica home to the largest mosaic collection outside of Russia (source for that little tidbit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_Basilica_of_Saint_Louis_(St._Louis)).  And in the basement of the cathedral there is even a crypt where important and influential members of the Catholic Church in St. Louis are buried.

And while seeing the cathedral cake was the main goal of the day, it just so happened that while Miles and I were out and about enjoying the scenery and snapping pictures, a parade decided to go by on the street below (ok, it was the 4th of July and all, but can’t chance parades just sometimes happen and bring cake hunting well wishes?). And while admiring said parade, what do I see on one of the floats but a giant cupcake!!! Talk about right place at the right time – it felt like a sign of cake hunting happiness meant for just Miles and I 🙂 It was the perfect beginning to the end of the cake adventure for that day.

To The Nines – The Nine Network #148

Cake #148 at the Nine Network

For more than a few reasons, the Nine Network holds a very special place in my heart, so for this post, I thought I’d run down a little list of 9 of those reasons (see what I did there?) mixed in with some history, so, ok, here we go!

1. The first ever broadcast from the Nine Network in St. Louis was on September 20th, 1954 from the gym at Washington University. The first show they ever ran was a play about the importance of free thinking. The show was in black and white and set a precedent for the excellence to come.
2. 

   Cake Monster helping a Big Bird out in the lobby of the Nine Network.

   One of the channel’s first areas of focus was on enriching children’s educational programming since, at the time, there was not a lot of that kind of television on air.

3. The year 1971 saw the first color broadcasting on the network and with it the expansion of programming to more hours on more days.
4. The mission statement of the founding members of the network really showed their commitment to local programming: “They believed that broad public education and a community forum for public dialogue would strengthen civic life in St. Louis” (http://www.ninenet.org/about/history/). I’d say mission accomplished!
5. Starting even from the beginning, the station’s main source of revenue has been membership – definitely makes you think about just how many dedicated people there are around St. Louis helping to keep the station going!
6. 

                                                                                                          Cake #148 at The Nine Network

   KETC stands for Educational Television Commission…with a K at the beginning for luck? Not too sure about that one even after some research.

7. Several of the St. Louis based shows have been nominated for Emmys including Arts America, Night at the Symphony and…
8. STAY TUNED! Which holds a very, very special place in this Cake Monster’s heart because in 2015 she was asked to be a part of the panel on the show that reflected on St. Louis in 2014. (If you’d like to watch a very nervous Cake Monster, you can here: https://www.pbs.org/video/stay-tuned-stl251/ ) 🙂
9. 

                                                                                                           Cake #148 at the Nine Network

   And while not nearly as exciting as my television debut, Cake #148 at the Nine Network was also a special occasion because I was finally able to give up the struggle of getting Mr. Miles James to sit still and look at the camera in front of a cake while I fumbled around trying to not make too much of a scene because I discovered if I just popped him up on top of the cake we were visiting, he would look straight at me every time! *whew* And it only took me until I was a little more than halfway through my hunt to figure it out 🙂

 

And All That Jazz – Gaslight Square #147

                                                                                                                Cake #147 at Gaslight Square

From Gaslight Theater to Gaslight Square, Miles and I pressed on with our tour of St. Louis historical sites. I’ll be honest and say that when I first saw the cake at Gaslight Square, I figured it had something to do with Laclede Gas and figured that it was nice of them to sponsor a cake and supply electricity (a kind thing to do, right?), but when I got home and really started researching what the location was all about, the real magic of cake hunting kicked in.

Gaslight Square (which is on the corner of Boyle and Olive downtown) used to be the place to be! From the 1950s to the 1960s, everybody who was anybody wanted to be seen hanging out in the area’s restaurants, shops, and cabarets. The name for the area was inspired by the gas lit lamps that were hung to light the way along the route and added to the atmosphere of old made new that attracted such a young and hip crowd – among them Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (two personal favs of mine) and Barbra Streisand (a personal fav of Mama Monster’s).

                                                                                                               Cake #147 at Gaslight Square

Another interesting tidbit that I learned in my research was that when the area was at its height, a lot of local business owners decided to reuse unused church pews, chandeliers, stained glass and bathtubs to give the shops and restaurants an eclectic feel that reminded me a lot of the wonder that is the Venice Cafe.

Sadly the end of the 1960s saw the rapid decline of the area without much being done to replace its former glory until the 1990s when much of it was turned into residential communities.

 

 

Cake #147 at Gaslight Square

A little light in the darkness, however, can be found at the location of the cake where there is a plaque with the names of some of the Square’s former residents and businesses and several columns in the style popular at the time meant to recapture some of the area’s magic and our imaginations.

To Be or Not to Be Fabulous – The Gaslight Theater #146

                                                                                                            Cake #146 at the Gaslight Theater

Let’s do this.

What: Cake #146

Where: The Gaslight Theater

When: July 4th, 2014

Who: Mr. Miles James and his Cake Monster mama

                                                                          Cake #146 at the Gaslight Theater

Why: Located in a 100+ year old building, this 97 seat theater hosts all different sorts of shows from comedy, drama, burlesque as well as musical acts. In addition, it is now the home of the St. Louis Actor’s Studio. Sharing its space with the West End Pub and Grill, the Gaslight Theater recaptures the magic of the historic Gaslight Square that once dominated the area with music, culture and all things creative.

Pride in my City – Little Golden Cake #145.5

                                                                          Palmetto, Cake Monster and Beadssssss

Let’s set the scene: it was the summer of 2014 and Mercutio Krispytreats, Palmetto Joseph Ray-Ban and this Cake Monster had donned our finest rainbow finery and headed to the Pride Parade to celebrate. After we had gathered as many beads as our necks could hold, we decided to check out the booths set up across the street. And as if it was fate, no sooner had we crossed the barrier into the party, did I spy with my little eye a glorious little golden sight! None other than the Little Golden Cake (“Goldie” for short)!!

Mercutio, Cake Monster and a convenient Frisbee hat

 

 

 

Goldie was the prototype for the rest of the STL250 cakes, only about one eighth their size and much more portable. During that summer, Goldie was making her way from event to event to get people excited to cake hunt and to give cake enthusiasts like me a perfect photo op and a chance to actually hold a cake in my hands (because let’s be real, the actual cakes were monsters and weighed at least 100 lbs each).

Miss Goldie on display!

 

After the Cakeway to the West of 2014 came to an end, Goldie was placed in a time capsule along with other artifacts from the year long adventure which will be opened in 2064 when St. Louis celebrates its 300th birthday, and this excited Cake Monster can only guess what the city adventure planners will cook up for that celebration!!

Searching for the Phantom Opera – Opera Theatre of St. Louis #145

                                                                                             Cake #145 at Opera Theatre of St. Louis

As the title of this blog post suggests, this cake was just a bit hard to find. The cake itself was a late addition to the big cake list I was using as my guide, so even though it is technically on Webster University‘s campus (or just outside of it), it wasn’t installed when Miles and I had our original adventure there. So in an effort to do a clean sweep of the cakes in that location, Miles James and I set out for what I figured would be a quick and easy cake sighting that would have us home in no time – wrong-o!

                                                                        Cake #145 Opera Theatre of St. Louis

I wish I could remember exactly how we got all twisted up, but eventually I pulled down a little side street that I was sure I had tried before, and lo and behold, there stood the cake! And I was finally able to breathe that awesome sigh of relief that this quick cake mystery had been solved!

As for the location, the Opera Theater of St. Louis was founded in 1976 by an innovative group of opera lovers that wanted to bring that style of theater to St. Louis.

                                                                      Cake #145 Opera Theatre of St. Louis

That first year, they presented 11 operas all sung in English, and they haven’t slowed down since with many shows even being accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Overall, Miles and I gave the cake an 8 out of 10 with points for creativity and a sparkly candle ‘flame,’ but with points being taken away for difficulty of location and the cake being located on top of a sewer…nothing says “Enjoy some opera!” like the fear of Pennywise (the clown from Stephen King’s IT) hiding just below where your cute pup is enjoying a cake.