NYPL

Until last night, we’d made deliveries via car, bus, subway, and on foot. Now we know the best way to roll into a party is with pastry boxes stacked high on the shelves of an old wooden library cart. Obviously. Thanks to the New York Public Library, we got to push our cupcakes through the halls of the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman building on the way to a forum featuring novelist John Wray and Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig.

We set up next to the bartenders (always set up next to the bartenders) and started handing out cupcakes to members of the Young Lions, a group of NYPL supporters. We went through 200 cupcakes in under 3 hours, a new Brown Paper Bag record! Congrats, everyone. It was a team effort.

Kate had a blast hanging out and helping people pick which flavor to have first (then second, then third). It’s finally Spring in New York, and Vampire Weekend’s Contra was playing on the stereo. Maybe she was dancing a little, what of it? Just when we thought it couldn’t get better, John Wray declared our cupcakes better than Magnolia’s. Not bad for a Tuesday at the library.

(This is John Wray. He writes good books and has excellent taste.)

Today’s flavors.

Synergy

Lowboy Right now we’re getting a few batches ready for an event next Monday at the New York Public Library - Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig in conversation with author John Wray (sorry, private shindig). Meanwhile, we’ve been reading Wray’s Lowboy and enjoying it quite a bit. Here’s a passage we found particularly inspired:

…his left hand held a plain brown paper bag. The bag was rolled shut but Lowboy could tell what was in it. The smell was sweet and dank and unmistakable. The thing in the bag was a Jamaican beef patty.

You probably thought it was going to be cupcakes, right? So did we. But then, 35 pages later:

The wall behind the counter was graced by a menagerie of pastel forms. Green and pink clots cupped in pleated waxpaper. Green for her afterimage, pink for his skin. He could tell by her expression that she was inspecting them closely.

“This place only makes cupcakes,” she murmured.

Yes! Finally. Wray talks more about his love of cupcakes here.