There is something rare in a person who looks for something
they want, can’t find it, so just makes it themselves.
Palace Cakes, minus the commercial sinks, ovens, and one
mixer the size of a smart car and as off-kilter as an overloaded
dryer; could be my grandmother’s house. The doilies, the
vintage style with elegant shelves in egg shell and pastels match
the cake plates of an age and heft from a time when you bought
your first and last cake stand in the same transaction. Steamed
windows remind me of the slider above my grandmother’s sink,
cracked slightly to let the literal warmth of baking out of the
metaphorically toasty home.
Elizabeth Beekley and Juli Bailey are two such women. The
women wanted something fairly specific. Elizabeth, with a
successful cookie shop already, she and Juli were talking one
day and had a hankering for a place they could get a fantastic
slice of yellow cake. That’s it. Nothing crazy, no fondant circus,
no frills besides the ones now found in Palace’s doilies and
drapes; the ladies wanted what they now call enriched uranium
(yellow cake).
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