{"id":23557,"date":"2017-05-25T14:58:46","date_gmt":"2017-05-25T18:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=23557"},"modified":"2017-05-25T22:28:35","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T02:28:35","slug":"cakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2017\/05\/25\/cakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Cake or death during the Nebula Awards weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh is home to two bucket list bites for foodies. One is the Primanti Bros sandwich<\/a> … and the other is the Prantl’s<\/a> burnt almond torte. I got to taste them both during the recent Nebula awards weekend.<\/p>\n

I already told you about my trip to Primanti’s<\/a>. Only four other SFWA members joined me there, but—because I was in the mood to share—a whole lot more got a taste of what The Huffington Post called<\/a> “The Greatest Cake America Has Ever Made.”<\/p>\n

Which, regardless of how mouthwatering it looks, isn’t this<\/em> cake.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But let me explain.<\/p>\n

On Saturday afternoon, I hiked over to Prantl’s with Rosemary Claire Smith, Michael Capobianco, Jim Fiscus, and John Moore to learn whether the much-raved-about cake was as good as people said. Luckily, we didn’t have to buy a full-sized sheet cake to find out, as the bakery sold bite-sized and bar-sized versions of the burnt almond torte as well. While I’m not sure I’d agree that it’s “The Greatest Cake America Has Ever Made,” it truly was a great<\/em> cake, and well worth the hike over.<\/p>\n

I bought one of the full-sized versions to bring home to my wife and share with neighbors, and as I was about to leave I spotted the tempting cake above, which was not sold by the slice or available in anything other than an entire cake. And I wanted to taste it without having to eat the whole thing. Luckily, since there were several hundred hungry friends waiting back at a hotel, I was able to snap it up.<\/p>\n

It’s called a Beehive Cake, and I alerted my fellow SFWAns via Twitter<\/a> that I’d soon be back and ready to share<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As there was a group already gathered in lobby—eating pizza, I think—I set up the cake among them and began to carve.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But who should get the first slice? If this were a wedding, it would go to the bride and groom, right? But while I was cutting, I noticed Connie Willis had wandered over, and so I invented a new rule—SFWA Grand Masters get fed first.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Then, as I was prepared to serve the next slice to a hungry Arley Sorg (that’s him leaning forward in the striped shirt above), who should pop by but Joe Haldeman—another Grand Master. And so …<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But don’t worry—no more Grand Masters arrived, so those who’ve yet to achieve such a lofty status eventually did get fed.<\/p>\n

Now about that Prantl’s famous burnt almond torte I’d meant for my wife …<\/p>\n

Well, I truly did intend to bring it home to her, I really did, and had even locked it in my Jeep, but that night at 2:00 a.m., when faced with dozens of hungry friends in the hotel lobby, I did what any good friend would do—remembered the cake and retrieved<\/em> it from my car, offering it to the assembled crowd.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I cut it into as many cubes as I could, feeding somewhere between 30 and 40 people, including one who shall remain nameless who described it as “orgasmic.”<\/p>\n

Yes, it was that good.<\/p>\n

It was only then, with the masses fed and happy, that I felt free to head over to Primanti’s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My big takeaway from that night? Next year, when SFWA brings the Nebula Awards weekend back to Pittsburgh … I’m going to need to buy a bigger cake!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh is home to two bucket list bites for foodies. One is the Primanti Bros sandwich … and the other is the Prantl’s burnt almond torte. I got to taste them both during the recent Nebula awards weekend. I already told you about my trip to Primanti’s. Only four other SFWA members joined me there, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[49,14,804],"class_list":["post-23557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-food","tag-nebula-awards","tag-prantls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23557"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23598,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23557\/revisions\/23598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}