Parks Department to Use Cupcakes to Fend Off Weenie Vendor Competition at the Met
Mayor Bloomberg may pay all sorts of lip service to the importance of healthy eating, and his Board of Education may want to keep anything baked by human hands out of the schools, but the city's Parks Department is apparently more than happy to peddle cupcakes on the streets.
clevercupcakes/Flickr No end in sight.
In an effort to gain an edge over all of the unlicensed weenie vendors who undercut the business of their own authorized cart, the Parks Department has awarded two separate permits to Culinary Engineers to sell cupcakes and milkshakes in front of the Met and in Washington Square Park.
The Post reports that Culinary Engineers, which is based in Astoria, will pay $108,000 for the first year as part of a five-year deal to operate in front of the Met, and $27,000 for the Washington Square Park location. Their bio-diesel-fueled, solar-powered carts will be called Cake & Shake, and will sell $3 cupcakes and $5 milkshakes. This being 2010, everything will be organic and will have ka-razy flavors and names like the Rich Guy, which sadly does not contain blow and beluga caviar but fig mousse, mandarin cake, candied walnuts, and cream cheese frosting.
The Daily News offers a disturbing report that some of the cupcakes will have fillings like ham, sausage, chicken, and turkey, which reminds us of something we once saw on Food Party but had never hoped to encounter in real life. But if there's anything that could make the cupcake trend come to a crashing halt, it's cupcakes filled with chicken, so perhaps this is a mixed blessing.
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