IT’S MISS JO’S B-DAY, AND AS FAR AS SHE’S CONCERNED, THE BEST THING ABOUT HAVING A BIRTHDAY IS EATING CAKE. NO PRESENTS. Just make sure she’s got a homemade layered birthday cake.
Jeff is the chief cake baker in the household, who today whupped up a chocolate devils food two-layer confection that’s extra moist from a cup of coffee in the batter. Per Miss Jo’s request, the fudgie layers have been slathered in marshmallowy Joy of Cooking seven-minute icing w/ a cup of unsweetened coconut.
Miss Jo’s vision for her birthday cake came from something old— the layer cakes her mom used to make– and something new— the bright white paper cutouts by San Francisco artist Tahiti Pehrson, whose 3D urban tableaus include Muni bus stops,
busking musicians playing Mexican love songs, bodegas, pool halls, bicyclists and Victorian rowhouses.
She even knows how to make paper cut-out cakes,
no doubt with seven-minute icing in mind, as birthday cake-brainstorming Miss Jo enthusiastically noticed on the artist’s website.
Miss Jo first learned about Pehrson when Joan of Art left a comment on a recent post about Ms. Teriosa, a soothsaying art installation on 24th Street in the Mission @ Harrison. Joan’s comment pointed down the block to Pehrson’s “We Built This City,” in the vacant storefront window of 2782 24th Street @ York.
Another Art-in-Store-Front work, Pehrson’s urban panorama first appears just decorative, maybe akin to Mexican papel picado, but up close you’re drawn into a streetscape that seems to mirror what’s out front on lower 24th Street near Potrero.
While taking it all in, Miss Jo heard what could be the artwork’s sound track: the nearby noise of metal skateboard wheels being slammed to the pavement, rolling faster and faster, followed by a posse of skaters whoooshing by in black skinny jeans and thick-s0led Vans. (The juxtaposition is so sweet because Pehrson has worked as a skateboard graphic designer.)
Just as Miss Jo would describe her birthday cake, Pehrson calls her cutouts “ephemeral art,” which this blogger happily noted, while serving up a second slice.
Photos by Miss Jo
10 Comments
Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy! First time I’ve been able to comment in a while. So sorry! And I don’t really know why I have no memory of 7-minute icing…I think my memory might be drying up!
Happy Birthday Miss Jo!
You have a guy that bakes and has mastered 7 minute icing? Props to him. It is one of my baking fails. But your cake sounds yummy!
May the next year be a happy, wonderful, bloggy, adventure in your great, adopted city. Looking forward to being there for my next b’day.
Happy Birthday Jo !
Happy B-Day to you–Happy B-day to you–Happy B-day, dear JOOOOOOOO–OOOOH!!!! Happy b-day tooooo youuuuuuuuu!
Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag from the country where your mother’s ancestors worked hard before they headed off to the promised land!
Happiest of Happy Birthdays!
Enjoy!!, and keep blogging….
(Many grateful readers.)
Oh, dear, dear Miss Jo – happiest day ever from your lifelong admirer.
Jo-Bob: I greet you! With birthday salutations!
Happy birthday Miss Jo. Hope you had a wonderful day.
Thanks for mentioning our Nepal blog in your blog. I feel honored. I also enjoyed your story about your blogging life. I’m still new to it but must say that I get more and more into it. Happy blogging!
Eugenie