Lyndsay Sung (Baker)
Over the past eight years, I've been wooed by the beautiful images on Lyndsay Sung's website Coco Cake Land. Known for her adorable animal cakes and literary-inspired sweets, Lyndsay is a self-taught baker who creates show-stopping cakes from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia. I was first introduced to her work when I came across her super cute Where the Wild Things Are cake and I've been a fan ever since! It's been wonderful to watch her grow over the years. I love the way she's constantly experimenting with bold, bright colors and new designs. Most recently, she's turned her icing into a megaphone, voicing her feelings about feminism and cancer (Lyndsay is a breast cancer survivor) through her cakes!
{Photo of Lyndsay by Lori Kiessling}
Lyndsay's cakes are truly a sight to behold: fun, mouthwatering, and powerful! You can check out more of her work on her website and through Instagram. A big thanks to Lyndsay for sharing her inspirations, and her cakes, with us today! Scroll down to read more! ~Erin
Listen
Native North America - You'd think you were hearing Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, and Johnny Cash in some of the songs, and the environmental and political issues the artists are singing about feel as current and important as ever. This compilation is a few years old, but I've been listening to it a lot lately. The music is transportive, a collection of Native and First Nations artists who recorded incredible, moving music back in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, but of course the music was largely unheard. One of my favourites is John Angiak's "I'll Rock You to the Rhythm of the Ocean."
Read
We were on a sailing trip this summer in the gulf islands of British Columbia and there's this awesome used book store on Saltspring Island. I picked up a collection of shorts curated by Haruki Murakami called Birthday Stories, which I hadn't ever heard of, so it was like finding a little jewel. I loved reading how so many different authors approached the topic of birthdays. My favourite stories in it are the ones by Russell Banks, Andrea Lee, and Denis Johnson.
I also recently read Roxane Gay's Hunger and it was so raw, intimate, and unsparing. Um, can I also recommend Roxane Gay's movie review of Magic Mike XXL. Just google it, you won't regret it. She is amazing.
Watch
Can I lose all street cred and be corny here and say that I just watched Gifted? It's like Good Will Hunting but with a little girl—a child actress that actually isn't annoying at all. It's a quiet, non-life-changing, just-barely-not-quite-made-for-TV movie about a little girl who lives with her uncle after her mathematician genius mom commits suicide. Come for a bearded Chris Evans, stay for a pretty good story (ok, I was bawling). I recently finished watching the super-dark Handmaid's Tale too, but I'm just adding that to counteract that I loved Gifted, haha.
