You may find this surprising, but Tucson is not NYC

When I was in New York for work in March, I was running a little early for a meeting and found myself walking past New York Cake and Baking Supply.  I popped in and was blown away by what I found - cake pans of every shape and size, cake toppers, cookie cutters, spatulas in multiple colors, and more sprinkles than I had ever seen in my life.  I took a picture and texted it to my sister, who has a way with cake decorating.

She wrote back commenting something about how we could easily spend a fortune there.  I restrained myself and got out with a set of flower cookie cutters, some edible gold dust, and a mini-cakes pan with butterfly and ladybug shapes.  I probably spent twenty minutes admiring all the aisles of goodies and imagining all the lovely things I could make (if I didn't have a full time job and had a kitchen like Martha Stewart). 

When I got home, the kids and I did make some sugar cookies and had a fun time decorating them.

 

So, fast forward to August 1st - I'm 11 weeks into my cake project and want a fancy bundt pan I've seen pictured in a couple of cookbooks.  I had passed a cake supply place in Phoenix, but haven't had time to stop there, so I looked up cake supply stores in Tucson.  Pat's Cake Supply was purported to have cardboard cake rounds (which I wanted) and loads of cake toppers.  Lilah and I headed out on a cake supply mission, only to realize that Tucson is not NYC, and Pat's Cake Supply basically had cardboard cake rounds and loads of cake toppers.  And not much else.  We were in the store about 90 seconds - as long as it took me to pick up and pay for my cardboard cake rounds. 

 

I had already looked for my fancy bundt pan at Target, and there are other cooking stores in Tucson - and it occurred to me that Williams Sonoma might have the pan, but then the light bulb went on over my head.  Ever since 1996 there's been this thing called the internet, and one of the things they do there is sell stuff.  For a second I couldn't believe I had even tried to find my fancy pan in a store.  Seriously, what was I thinking!  Within a few minutes the Nordic Ware pan had been located on amazon.com and purchased (with free shipping).

 

I'm psyched about my new pan, probably on its way to me as I type.  And it didn't take me as long to figure out that when I couldn't find pink peppercorns at Safeway or Whole Foods, I would probably find them more quickly online. 

Oh, and New York Cake and Baking Supply does mail order:
http://www.nycake.com/