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Betty Crocker is my home slice

By Angela Espinoza

isclaimer: The word ‘cake’ is used
D= 33 times in this article. But

then again, you can never have too
much cake.

There’s simply no way to work around
this fact; yes, the cake has been scientifically
proven to be a lie. The allure and promise
of cake has been forever used as a ploy for
bargaining. How many birthdays, weddings,
and even business meetings have you attended
squarely for the purpose of obtaining cake?
The amount of cake you consume in your
lifetime will have largely been sacrificed to
names and faces you still may not know to
this day.

But we cannot keep looking at cake in
such a negative light. Cake is not just some
icing-covered whore we pass around at a
party. If anything, the use of cake, even as a
self-compromise, is continuing to bring the
world closer together. We use cake as a social

device, to meet friends old and new, or to
brighten a loved one’s day. Think of all the
times someone brought you cake because of a
failed test or scraped knee. There was no sense
crying over every mistake, you just kept on
trying till you ran out of cake.

We often forget, though, that
deliciousness is just one of cake’s many uses.
After all, you never want to have a situation
where the ratio of people to cake is too big.

In these circumstances, one can use cake

as a musical device. With singles like “The
Distance” and “Never There,” Cake has held a
successful place in the alt rock world. Be wary
of playing the song “McArthur Park”, though,
as many have confused its use of ‘cake’ as a
metaphor for love. In actuality, it is simply
warning the listener to not leave their cake out
in the rain; a basic life lesson.

Cake is also universally adaptable to
people of all sorts. It’s understandable that
some find the size and supposed calories of
basic cakes to be a tad much. Thus we have

Pie takes the cake when it comes to desserts

The pinnacle of picture-perfect pastries

By Jacey Gibb

why I love pie so irrationally. It could

be because of the vast library of puns
waiting to be made about it (see previous
sentence). It might also be its impressive
diversity to act in various flavours; pie can be
filled with either fruity fillings like strawberry
or more ambitious substances like pecans
or banana cream. On the opposite side of
the pie spectrum, you can even fill pies with
something savoury, resulting in variations like
mince meat.

The presence of pie in pop culture may
have also have played a part in developing
my preference for it. Whether it’s witnessing
the classic scenario of a pie cooling down
on the windowsill (why does no one do this
anymore?) or the scene in Spiderman 3 where
James Franco and Tobey Maguire share a
slice, pie’s popularity is evident. There’s also
the comedy gold activity of watching a pie be
thrown in someone’s face. If you threw a cake
at a person’s cranium, you would probably be
subjected to very negative feedback. However,
if you threw a pie at someone, it would most
likely result in the victim praising you for your
refined taste in pranks.

Another characteristic of pie that puts
it ahead of cake is Pi Day. For those of you

I: hard to isolate a sole reason as to

unaware of this stupendous holiday, March 14
(3.14) encourages everyone to celebrate the
mathematical variation of pie by consuming

a slice of the delicious variation. Last year

I made sure to do my part by purchasing a
marvellous lemon meringue pie. Though

I may not have actually realized I was
celebrating Pi Day until my roommate pointed
it out, I stand by my purchase.

To me, cakes are simply pies that didn’t
make it in life and had to settle on being a
second-rate dessert. Why every year on my
date of birth, I was forced to honour the
tradition of consuming cake, I will never

cake’s adorable little cousin, the cupcake.
Those foreign to cake can also appreciate the
use of Swiss rolls. But if you’re a man’s man,
these cakes can sound a bit sissy; that’s where
layer cake comes in. You could have three
cakes piled on top of each other, and it’d still
be a single cake. With its consistent ability to
change with its situation, one could even say
that cake is a natural occurrence.

One could debate that, yes, pie has
a fairly larger following than cake, but
so did the Nazis. Pie is often stuffed with
fruits, subliminally convincing its fans to
get involved with our current health fad,
attempting to spoil cake for everyone. Cake
isn’t about conformity; it’s about bringing
people together. I’m not going to be like the
pie people and demand segregation, though.
If pie wants to be friends with cake, he’s more
than welcome to, because while delicious cake
is delicious, it’s not malicious.

   

know. From writing this pie-appreciation
piece, a golden ticket idea has emerged:
birthday pie. While we’re at it, why not also
trade in that three story high wedding cake?
Too long have we had to endure boring
rectangular shaped desserts while having to
deal with the hazards of dishing out slices of
these top-heavy, layered time bombs. Join me
in the pie-volution and vow to shun cake like
that manic-depressed aunt no one likes to talk
about.

I hope you enjoyed reading my argument
for my favourite dessert. After all, writing this
article was as easy as pie.