The Rookery ?or? Stranger in a strange place

Muffins!

This evening I watched an episode of the classic television program The Twilight Zone.

As I was “…traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind…”, according to the show’s intro,  I had an astonishing thought.

I know. Weird. No one in the history of the world has ever been stoned watching The Twilight Zone and had a perceived epiphany.

Grant me the poetic license, if you will, for my great and luminous vision didn’t concern the solution for six minute abs or a path to peace in the Middle East.

My vision was about muffins.

Or, rather, to be more accurate… cupcakes. Why these heavenly creations aren’t called by the more sweetly sonorous term muffincakes, I will never understand.

I digress…

I thought of cupcakes during The Twilight Zone because I consumed one from The Rookery café earlier today that lit up the addiction centers of my brain like a triple gold nugget jackpot on a slot machine. It was so delicious and exactly what I needed at that moment in time. I have been pining for something different and beguiling to experience in this town of lowered expectations.

It was red velvet cupcake armature enveloped in a sheath of cream cheese frosting covering the top of the cake like a wildly distended white yarmulke of sweet and savory cloth.

It was different than any muffin-type cake I have ever consumed, and that is what made it so harmonic. I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into with a red velvet cupcake, but I was intrigued.

Sort of like “The Invaders”, the episode of The Twilight Zone that shimmered across my moist eyeballs earlier this eve. From the episode description on my TV guide:

“The Invaders”, (1961), There is no dialogue in this story of a rural woman (Agnes Moorehead) who battles to repel two creatures from another planet. (Sci-Fi).

When I started watching the episode, I was wary of the strange description. How can there be an episode of The Twilight Zone, a show where everything has to be explained in breathless mouthfuls of science fiction jargon, without anyone talking? How can there be a cupcake constructed out of red velvet, a material seemingly better suited for classy sportcoats or Elvis portraiture?

I pressed play and sat transfixed. Magic burst across my screen in the guise of a series of moving pictures from 50 years ago, filmed during the 365 day period that encompassed JFK’s moon speech and the film West Side Story and the ascent to #1 on the Billboard Top 100 rankings of the song “Runaway” by Del Shannon.

The lone character in the episode outside of some robot antagonists is a crazed, feral-looking woman. In act one, we see her glumly stirring a giant pot of some sort of sustenance. Great plumes of stage smoke emerge from the edges of the foreboding black cauldron.

In many ways, the episode of The Twilight Zone that I just watched could have been dedicated to film at any point in between the advent of moving pictures in the late 19th century and modern day. One could say that the idea is timeless, even, with the old-fashioned elements like the woman whose acting is straight out of a talkie from the dawn of cinema.

In many ways, the cupcake that I just ate could have been made at any point in between the advent of cupcakes in the late 19th century and modern day. One could say that the idea is timeless, even, with the old-fashioned elements like the cream cheese frosting.

God, I love cream cheese frosting.

In short, what I am trying to get across through the use of extended metaphor is that the cupcakes at The Rookery are cosmic.

The cupcakes are my current obsession, but I would also beseech you to try the croissants, which are buttery and always fresh and completely fulfilling. I love the filled varieties, including the ham and cheese and the turkey and swiss.

The Rookery is, for my money, the best bakery and coffee house in this woebegone city of dead-end food options. They stock many of my favorite coffees, including the excellent Stumptown line from PDX. Stumptown’s coffee houses in Portland use a French press to make all or almost all of the coffee sold in-store to their cult following of shameless hipsters and serious connoisseurs, and the Rook also offers French press service, which is truly a revelation in Juneau.

They are unearthly and from another dimension.

A dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity that can only be found at 111 Seward Street, Monday through Saturday from 7am until 8pm.

A dimension called…

The Rookery.

Or is it The Twilight Zone? I’m confused.

10 out of 10 Feedbags!