I was happy to see this Boston Globe article highlighting The Divorce Party author Laura Dave because I read and really enjoyed her second novel, especially her description of the power of baking a perfect cake for someone, and a history of the red velvet cake that may or may not be true. It's definitely a passage that shows how attached we get to certain foods, that our pleasure in them is about so muc more than the taste, which I think goes double (or more) for cupcakes.
On a bright, sunny June day, the petite writer Laura Dave ("I'm 5-foot-10 in my head," she says), clad in a diaphanous white top, tucks into a red velvet cupcake from the South End Buttery. "It really does not look red," she says, noting the cupcake's devil's-food-like coloring and artfully sculpted frosting.
"So much cake is so, so sweet," says the 30-year-old author of the charming coming-of-age novel, "London Is the Best City in America" and the recently released and just as insightful "The Divorce Party" - both of which have been optioned by Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, respectively. The trip to Boston was supposed to be part of her book tour, but the event fell through - leaving her more time to visit friends and sample sweets.
Cupcakes have become a "Sex and the City"-approved trend, and terrible versions of red velvet cake have spread far and wide. But this Buttery cupcake, with vinegar to cut the sweetness, gets it right, Dave declares.
Red velvet cake has an important role in "The Divorce Party," a wry and observant novel about the relationship between an engaged woman and a woman-on-the-verge of divorce, and the latter woman's divorce party (a real, nascent trend). In the novel, as a character whips up a special recipe for red velvet cake, Dave writes about the food's origins: The Southern cake originates from the grand tradition of using symbolism and myth to create food. The white-and-red cake is a simple story of good (the white frosting) vs. evil (the red-colored cake). "It's part of the fun; it's supposed to be about good versus evil," Dave says between bites. "It feels almost scandalous!"
Dave credits her affection for the cake to her Southern mother's old family recipe.
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