Since the end of May there has been much talk in my twitter stream about cake. Specifically orange cake. To clarify I don’t mean orange colored or orange in the carrot flavor sense of the term but this kind of orange:

Anywho, as I’ve said there has been a lot of talk. Mostly coming from Erica of The Book Cellar and Khy of Frentic Reader. But it is a long running joke now and many others have joined in the fun. Others not in the loop have also started to ask me the story about the meaning of the Orange Cake and so here it is.

Once upon a time, not too long ago (May), I and many others attended the Book Expo America in that fabled city known as New York. There was much fun to be had during this time and many meet ups among bloggers. Including one that took place in a tea house. See us all gathered here:

At this tea there was desert that came in the form of little tiny cakes covered in different colors of fondant. The waitress, who bore a very uncanny resemblance to a pixie in both appearance and voice, plopped a purple covered cake in front of me and called it orange flavored.

I looked around and heard there was chocolate and asked the pixie in a very nice voice if I could please have chocolate.  The rest of the dialogue went something like this:

The Pixie smiled and said “Well have you tried the orange its quite nice.”
Me: No thank you I would prefer chocolate.
The pixie smiled again and said “Oh but you must try the orange it is really good.”
I smiled back, a bit tightly and said once again that I would really prefer chocolate as I am not a fan of orange.
Pixie: Oh but the orange is really good. I don’t like orange things myself and I really do enjoy this cake. Go one now. Just try it.
Me (a bit more forcefully): I would really just have one of the chocolate cakes, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.
Pixie: Are you sure you don’t want to try it? Just one bite? I’ll get you a chocolate but you should try the orange.
Me: I’ll pass.
Pixie: You really won’t try it? C’mon on now…try it….just try it.

This went on for a bit before it finally sunk in that I wasn’t going to try the orange cake….I tend to dig in my heels a bit and my stubborn streak comes out when someone tries to force me to do something. And I think she eventually sensed that the delightful orange cake was moments away from getting smashed in her face (I have a wee temper too) and she left to get a chocolate one.

The rest of the tea party gang thought this exchange was quite fun and it was only moments of the pixie departing in which the chants of “just try it, try the orange cake” started…..and haven’t stopped since.

I still refuse to eat the orange cake.

Or I did….one night I forget the conversation but it was on twitter with Erica who was joking with me about the orange cake and for whatever reason I tossed out that I would eat the Orange cake when I hit 500 blog followers.

I thought this would pass. I should have known better. I also thought it would take eons to hit 500 followers. But when this exchange went down – just a few weeks ago – I was at around 250 followers and at the time of this posting I’m at 315. So 500 might come sooner than I thought it would.

So that is the story of the Orange Cake. If I ever make it to 500 blog followers I will make and eat orange cake. Stay tuned…