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I can judge a book by how good it tastes

By: Doug Speirs

Posted: 04/2/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

As a crusading newspaper columnist, I have spent a great deal of my life searching for perfection.

I came close to finding it over the weekend when I left the safety of my home, drove downtown and served as one of three "expert judges" for the second annual Books2Eat Festival at the Millennium Library, an impressive edifice that is impossible to miss, unless, like me, you have no sense of direction, and therefore, after driving around aimlessly for 30 minutes, have to call a friend whose spouse works at the library to get directions.

Eventually, however, I made my way to the Carol Shields Auditorium on the library's second floor to begin judging Books2Eat, part of a worldwide festival wherein contestants whip up edible works of art inspired by books.

The masterpieces had to be made from things we judges would not be afraid to put in our mouths and they had to either physically look like a book, or a character from a book, or reference a scene from a book, or be a pun on the title of a book.

For me, this was ALMOST a perfect event, because it combined two of the things I love most -- reading and eating. The only thing that would have made it better was if they had given the judges couches so we could carry out our vital duties in a horizontal position.

My co-judges were Carol Bigold, co-owner of High Tea Bakery and an expert in everything to do with cake and cookies, and Jamis Paulson, associate publisher with Turnstone Press who, along with being highly literary, also happened to be wearing the most amazing shoes I have ever seen in the sense they looked like rubber gloves on his feet.

Shoes aside, there were also some awesome edible artworks, mostly made from cake, though that was not required by the rules. Last year, one entry was nothing more than a raw fish, which I assume was inspired by Moby Dick.

In the professional category, our favourite entry was a cake that was the spitting image of Little Miss Sunshine, the melon-headed, pig-tailed star of a children's book of the same name.

"I'm going to declare this cake adorable," I told the panel.

"I would say totally adorable," Carol confirmed.

In the open category, "Most Humorous" went to a cake -- inspired by the novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake -- that was split in two and weeping blue-icing tears.

"It seems odd giving the humour award to the saddest cake, but it did crack us up," Jamis pointed out.

The "Most Bookish" entry was inspired by The Hunger Games and featured cupcakes, each sporting the symbol of one of the districts from the wildly popular series, spilling out of a Graham cracker cornucopia. It was deeply moving in a tasty way.

"Most Creative" went to a cake version of Bilbo Baggins' Hobbit hole home. The Peoples' Choice Award went to a cake inspired by the kids' book Bathtime Peekaboo that featured icing rubber duckies swimming in a sea of bubbles on a blue cake resting on bathroom tiles made from icing. "It's only the second cake I've ever made," Linda McKenzie of Selkirk burbled in delight. "I've never won anything before. I'm fascinated by rubber duckies and this was the only book I found on them."

The point is, whether you're searching for duckies or perfection, you might want to start at the library, where you can fill your imagination and, on a good day, your stomach, too.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 2, 2012 A2

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