Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes and San Francisco

I think I need a new strategy with this blog. I feel like the five of you who read/follow my blog need to know that I am still baking the cupcakes. In fact, I have made a lot of cupcakes over the last few weeks. However, after baking them, decorating them, and giving them away, I seem to lack the energy/motivation to blog about them. But I don't want you to give up on me, so I am going to post this one about my most recent cupcakes/adventures in San Francisco and work my way backward. Stay tuned.

A few months ago, in an effort to connect to my Japanese American heritage, I decided to attend the National Council on Family Relations annual conference in San Francisco. Before the conference started, they had an event in which they screened a documentary called Children of the Camps, and toured Japantown, which is the Japanese district of San Francisco. The documentary features six people who were interred as children during World War II, who come together at a retreat to process their experiences related to the camps and the war.

When I told my mom I was going to San Francisco, she immediately wanted to go with me. It turns out, if you are fortunate enough to live in Las Vegas, you can fly to San Francisco and back for less than $100. If you live in Lubbock, it can cost you four times as much. When my parents decided to come along, I suggested my dad attend the pre-conference event with me. He thought it was a great idea.

The documentary was awesome. I now own a copy of it on DVD, if you would ever like to borrow it. It stimulated a lot of good conversation between me and my dad on the bus ride to downtown San Francisco where we first stopped to have lunch. We were offered 12 choices of lunch combos or bento, and were limited to chicken, beef, pork, ramen, or tempura, with a side dish of unagi or sashimi. That's right: Dad had to explain to miscellaneous family scientists from across the country that, with their lunch of chicken, they could choose between barbecued eel or an array of raw fish slabs.

Here I am outside the restaurant, posing next to the plastic food display.

After lunch, we were taken on a tour by a representative from the Japanese American Historical Society. Here she is in front of a monument to three generations of Japanese Americans.

One side represents issei, or the first generation, which would have been my great-grandparents. They were shown as immigrants settling in San Francisco. Another side showed nisei, which would have been my grandparents, and were represented by people in internment camps. Our tour guide, whose name I have already forgotten, is standing in front of the side representing sansei and beyond, meaning my dad's generation, my generation, and future generations. Interestingly, it is this panel that depicts people dressed in Japanese-style clothing, participating in obon. Apparently, in the 1980's, there was a cultural emphasis on reconnecting with one's roots, inspired, in part, by the book/miniseries Roots. Buildings in Japantown that reflect Japanese architecture were built during this period.

Here is a shot of my dad in front of the Peace Pagoda. It was given to San Francisco by the people of Osaka, Japan.

After the tour, we spent some time shopping. We hit the 100-yen store, where I bought a tie for Danny that appears to be a collection of letters that almost spell English words, but not quite. If I were to compare it to my other experiences of shopping for Japanese stuff, I would have to say that Japantown in San Francisco is better than Little Tokyo in LA, but still not very much like actual Japan.

The next day, we took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to San Francisco, where we took a cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf. Here are some helpful things we learned about travelling in San Francisco:

• Public transportation is expensive.
• Cable cars are not efficient.

We had clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls and fish 'n chips at a little stand, which we ate while standing up against a counter behind the stand.

Here is a shot of my parents near the beach. It was a pretty chilly day, and we saw no reason to get any closer to the water than that.

We did some shopping in Ghirardelli Square, which is named after the chocolate. However, we did not buy any chocolate. Instead, we bought a cupcake.

Here is a picture of the pretty box it came in.

It was Meyer lemon, which I have a recipe for in my Martha cookbook. It was beautiful and tasted great. In true Mom fashion, she had me go back into the store and buy a second cupcake. It was coconut, and it was also fantastic.

We took a walk along one of the piers and watched people poaching for crabs.

Then we took a cable car back toward the city, where we explored Bloomingdale's and saw Wicked. It was a great day!

The next day, we took a trip up the coast, shopped around in a little resort town called Half Moon Bay, and had some great seafood at a place called Sam's Chowder House. I bought another cupcake, but it was not as good. I have no pictures from my camera on this day, so I will have to get the ones my parents took.

I headed back to Lubbock and life on Friday, and on Saturday night, I made pumpkin patch cupcakes.

Because Martha is Martha, she couldn't possibly include a recipe for just plain pumpkin cupcakes. She had to add some degree of difficulty, so this recipe called for marzipan pumpkins. Marzipan is a sweet paste made out of almonds. It is malleable like fondant, and, according to Lorelei Gilmore, "it is a unique substance unto itself, like Velveeta or plutonium."

Here is my attempt at marzipan pumpkins. I dyed the marzipan orange with gel food color, and shaped it with my fingers. After I made about 16 of them, I sort of lost interest. I do not feel they added much to the overall taste of the cupcakes, and I didn't feel anyone at my ward Mix and Munch would miss not having them.

In all other aspects, they are just regular pumpkin cupcakes.

The recipe calls for cake flour, so they are very light and moist. They are perfect with cream cheese frosting.

They also have only brown sugar in them, which also makes them seem very rustic and fall-like.

Here they are, with and without the marizpan. What do you think, do they add to the cupcakes, or are they just unnecessary fluff?