"... bring together a diverse constituency of community groups, neighborhood councils, design & architecture firms, professional organizations, non-profits, cyclists & pedestrian advocates as they work together to transform numerous parking spaces & parking lots located throughout LA into ephemeral parks for the day. By occupying a parking spot and feeding the meter, volunteers will enhance the street with a sustainably designed pocket-park." - Parking Day LA, About Page.I'm in the bandwagon with all the local Greensters, a cycling group that supplies a sustainable choice in the film industry.
I'm doing a cupcake cart, offering cupcakes by the cupboodles for every boy and girl in town.
Right now different ideas are being thrown around. The moment I suggested using bags or popsicle sticks, it was a definitive "NO!" So, hmm, how am I going to give out bundles of cupcakes and pie coins if I can't put them in a bag, or offer them individually on sticks?
He suggested I use reuseable containers for storage and to hand them out with gloves. I'm not sure what planet he came from, but on Planet America a lot of people would find it gross and give them a weird flashback to the icky lunch lady from the high school cafeteria. (Remember when you caught her picking her nose with the gloves ON?)
Food service is gross. No way around it. The act of eating food reminds us that we have to poop sometime, and the thought of poop makes us want to vomit, and when we want to vomit we often burp, and when we burp it makes us feel satisfied.
Weird [reverse?] circle of life.
Another suggestion he brought up was to have my cupcake cart (which is just a heavy cargo bicycle with a cardboard rendition of a cupcake posted on the front) be almost like an ice cream serving station with this scenario: I open up my cardboard cupcake, at the top tier will be a selection of cupcake flavors for which they'll have they choice and I'll slather on a delicious frosting.
Logistic nightmare for a long, hot day (which will be hot, since it's September, and it will be long since it's all day, biking across the city). The frosting will melt, the cupcakes may not stay, and it may still involve me handing out food in plastic gloves.
There's no real way around this but this sustainability crap is a pain in the pass. There are no biodegradable plastic "treat bags" or "100% recycled from newspaper" popsicle sticks. No "keep me forever" lightweight cardboard boxes, or decorative styles that coordinate with this demand.
I get the sneaking suspicion as if I'm doomed to fail. How can an amateur baker rise up to this challenge? It seems almost too difficult.
But a commitment is a commitment. And I foresee myself donning on those hot, sweat-inducing gloves. In reality, it comes down to a thought: disposable plastic gloves that will get dirty from a bike ride across the city, or the simple cleanliness of a cellophane bag?
Sometimes sustainability sucks.
