I broke with my veganness (Veganism? Veganity? Veganity sounds vaguely dirty) yesterday to have a piece of Milky Way cake someone had brought into the office. Cake is something I don't eat often, as it has such a way of disappointing--too dry, too sweet, frosting made from pigs--but this cake not only looked like it had leapt from the pages of a cookbook, but it was housed inside a stainless steel lidded contraption with the word "cake" raised in steel on the side of the container. I'm a sucker for clear labelling.

I believe this was indeed ur-cake, the cake from which all other cakes, even all ideas of cake that live in our collective unconscious, have sprung. Dense, moist caramel cake with bittersweet chocolate frosting and gooey caramel-fudge *stuff* between the layers. So worth the stomache.

Also, it was have a piece of cake or walk over to another building and choke the tar out of someone so, you know, cake.