First and foremost, let's get the small stuff out of the way. I can be kind of fickle, and I'll often have some rather petty complaints about any mass event I'm attending, but this was sort of a bomb from the start. The first wall we ran up against was parking. It wasn't so much that there wasn't enough parking. In fact, quite the opposite. We had our choice of four or five lots to park in. What there wasn't was any sort of helpful sign telling us or anybody else where to go. We had to watch and follow crowds to even figure out what side of the building we were supposed to enter on.
Upon finding the front of the building, we were faced with problem number 2. We, like so many other people attending, had taken the time to purchase tickets online to skip the hassle of waiting in line. No such luck. It actually turned out that there were two separate lines, one to get tickets you had purchased online and another for cash tickets. The largest issue with this was that almost everybody there has purchased them ahead of time, so the line was easily 40-50 people strong, while any straggler who wanted to pay cash could grab a ticket and waltz on in.
Before launching into my biggest tirade, let me just take a second to dump all over the event itself. It was like lining up to take a walking tour of the insides of a living elephant. It was hot, there was no room to turn around or even move forward, there was hardly anything to drink and, while there was definitely an abundance of things to eat, I probably wouldn't recommend sampling much of it in retrospect.
Now, the biggest thing; the cupcake contest. My friend Joanna entered a cupcake contest upwards of a month ago and, out of the many entries in the Pittsburgh area, hers received enough votes to land her in the top five. That meant that today she was given the chance to compete in round two, in which the top 5 bakers got to all Iron Chef all over one anothers asses. I am not sure of the exact restraints of time and contents, but here's what I can tell you: Joanna broke no rules, made the most wonderfully decorated cupcakes imaginable and yet...
It's my understanding that the 5 ladies were told not to have anything outside of the cupcakes themselves pre-made. The lady next to Joanna arrived with pre-made figures. Joanna was told that no one was allowed to lend her aid. The lady next to her had (needed?) help finishing her cake. Joanna was told to make cupcakes that celebrated the holidays. The lady next to Joanna decided to make a cupcake worthy of celebrating the rear end of a pig.
Perhaps to anyone stumbling upon this, it seems a little contrived and biased, but let me assure you, this was the Kerry/Bush election all over again. Had Joanna had the popular vote going for her, she'd have won in a landslide. Let me put it like this... If Joanna had won, people would have walked by saying "Oh! This is the one that won!". Instead, most people ended up walking by the winning entry saying "Oh. This is the one that won?".
Bologna. Rubbish. Bull Honky. Horseshit. Call it what you will. I'm not a culinary expert by any stretch of the imagination, but anyone selling me a belt will tell you that I'm a man who knows him some cake.
Bad form, Pittsburgh.
bth
Thanks. It was horseshit. Someone called me today and said the employee who said I was disqualified was mistaken.
ReplyDeleteUm, right.