Magnolia's Not In Magnolia

Several weeks ago, I traveled downtown with my friend Ryan to Korea Town for an art gallery show. As most of you probably know, New York has recently received the weather from Seattle--we get rain every single day. So, I exited the subway at 28th and Broadway and stood on the corner, waiting for Ryan, in the drizzly, awful rain.

After we met up, we went into the only open building on the block. While I was waiting on the corner, I seemed to notice a lot of fancy, fashionable young people entering this building. Running across the street in 5 inch heels, skin tight jeans, and covering their hair with magazines or their jackets, I got the feeling that I would be surrounded by this crowd in the near future.

The elevator up to the gallery was packed. When I say packed, I mean that I couldn't move my little toe. On the wall was a sign saying, "Dude, Don't Cock Block Me." Classy. And indeed, it did get quite a rise out of the bros in the elevator with us.

Once we entered the packed gallery, we were pushed around rudely by lots of young New Yorkers dressed to the nines chatting loudly on their blackberrys. We stood on a line to pick up our tickets and once we finally got through the door, I noticed something. I was surrounded by Jews. Everywhere. The majority of the men were wearing kippot (for all of you who aren't familiar with Jewish accessories, a kippah [plural= kippot] is a heading covering that Jews wear to be humble in front of God). In Manhattan, at a fancy gallery, there were tons and tons of men dressed in expensive suits and making statements about their religious practice with kippot. Where the hell was I?

I looked in the program and of course, to my surprise, this specific art show highlighting young Jewish New York artists is giving all of the proceeds from its auction to at-risk youth in Israel. Ok. The kippot make sense.

Overall, the art was creative--a smattering of mixed media, photography, oil on canvas. But, what was even better was the glorious presence of Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. Magnolia Bakery, a New York institution, has three locations around the city--the upper west side, the west village, and at Rockefeller center. This magnificent little cupcakes, the catering specialty of the bakery, are multicolored, multi-layered, and just so damn pretty to look at!

I tried the mini red velvet cupcake with the cream cheese frosting. Amazing. Even though they had been sitting hour for what might have been hours, they were moist, fresh, and absolutely delicious. One Magnolia is never enough, I ate a second one. A dark chocolate cake and chocolate ganache frosting. Also amazing. These people get it right.

Surrounded by my people (Jews--of all shapes and sizes), art, my friend, and cupcakes, I had a pretty good night. It was definitely one hell of a motivation to get my butt over to Magnolia bakery, just one mile from my apartment.