It’s true. Cupcakes are making an appearance everywhere lately and this time around they’re adorable, dolled up, whimsical, dramatic, holiday embellished and so extravagant you would fret to take a bite. But you know, despite their sumptuous garnishment, cupcakes make sense in a very practical way. They’re easy to eat for one thing. The basic version consists of a 2-3 bite sized, cake-filled, frosting topped paper cup. No plate or fork is needed and you can eat them on the fly. There is also the gigantic benefit of serving them at a birthday party attended by 5 year olds. OK, so you might find discarded cupcake wrappers, but this alternative is nothing compared to coming across a piece of runaway birthday cake stomped on and ground into the carpeting. Trust me, I know.
So what’s the deal with cupcakes? More than likely it has to do with the ubiquitous Martha Stewart, Queen of Homecrafts and Cookery. I also think they are a good example of creative marketing. Cupcakes have been around for a long time. According to “The History of the Humble Cupcake” by Brock Hamilton , they debuted in the early 19th century and were used as a measuring device. But this we also know, somewhere between then and now, cupcakes slid down the list of our favorite things. This probably happened during the Great Depression, followed relatively closely by WWII, when butter and eggs were either scarce or too expensive. My own personal theory is that when Chinese food became really popular as #1 take out, people just plum forgot about them… War, economic crisis and Chinese exportation can wreck havoc on anything. Fortunately clever people have resurrected the cupcake and brought it to new heights by devising exciting new flavors and catchy names that could double as online monikers. Coconut Bunny, Drama Queen, Lemon Drop and Pucker Up do a fantastic job of capturing the imagination and awakening the taste buds.
And this brings me to my point. Everything old is new again. So I ask, can this be true for manufacturing in America as well? President Elect Barak Obama has a plan for resurrecting the manufacturing industry and I am eager to hear it. Could it be that the practicality of bringing manufacturing back home to the USA, given correct market and economic conditions, could become a feasible option? I say this with baited breath, for even as I write the stock market has plummeted another 400 points and GM looks as though it won’t make it into next year. One has to dig deep to find optimism these days. Creativity is one thing, but having the resources to stay afloat is another. Careful business management is the cornerstone of any successful small business but when market conditions sour they can vanish all our hard work quickly and harshly. The question which looms over every single one of us is simple: How can we turn this baby around?
I have no clue. The experts don’t seem to have much of a clue either but I believe they will figure it out. It stands to reason that bringing our manufacturing base home to the US is one of the key elements to literally shoring up a large part of our economic foundation. Am I’m dreaming? No, and I’m not expecting miracles either. What I am is hopeful. I also believe that anything is possible given time. Oh, and did I mention hard work? Relentless hard work.
Anyway… for now, work-schmerk. I’m going to put my feet up on the desk and take a bite of my Drama Queen cupcake. It’s chocolate with vanilla french butter cream frosting and I also get the lick the paper. Yum…