Introducing...Dessert After Dark

One of our favorite poets, John Ashbery, has this great poem from 2014 called A Sweet Disorder. “I’ll have a Shirley Temple,” the narrator says. “Certainly, sir,” someone responds from what might be considered the wings of the poem. “Do you want a cherry with that?” Then, Ashbery’s narrator says something truly unforgettable: “I guess so. It’s part of it, isn’t it?” 

Welcome to 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤, a special edition of The Nightlife Review created with Cake Zine, a literary food magazine exploring society through sweets in print (and occasionally online). Contributors include Vrinda Jagota, Arielle Gordon, Katie Way, Puloma Ghosh and more. All artwork is by Carlos Sanchez. 

What happens to dessert after the sun sets? Each story in this edition of The Nightlife Review insists that the cherry is part of it. Bread pudding belongs in the club, a cake stand belongs on the bar, macarons should be served at sex parties, and the green M&M lives to seduce. 

You can say “I guess so” to a night out on the town, but by the time you’re in it, you’re already bobbing like a cherry. And when you stumble home at 2AM and open your refrigerator, both you and your dessert have become part of the night itself: “Really cold tiramisu scooped straight from the dish in the fridge,” recommends Alicia Kennedy. “In this fantasy, I'm not blind-drunk but perfectly maintaining ballast and decorum despite the hour.”

Whatever your fantasy, we hope you get a taste of it in this very special issue. You’ll need to be subscribed to both Dirt and Cake Zine for the full experience. —Daisy Alioto, Tanya Bush, and Aliza Abarbanel 

Dynaco’s Dynamic Cake Baker

Vrinda Jagota gets a lesson in cake baking from the former face of Tampax/current face of a beloved Bed-Stuy bar.

Cathy Lloyd Burns wants to make toast. She wants to stand in the back of Dynaco, the Brooklyn bar her husband, Adam Forgash, runs with his brother Ben, and fill up the room with the scent of crispy homemade sourdough. It would be cozy, she tells me, not to mention highly appealing to hungry, drunk patrons. But Forgash is worried about the crumbs and the fuss. Plus, there's plenty to do with the cake already.

I initially wanted to interview Burns, the baker behind the cakes at Dynaco, because I was curious about why it was the only food item on their menu (besides goldfish), and because I love the way it is displayed. Positioned on a cake stand beside Dynaco's quaint wood paneling and swathed in amber lighting, the cake has the steadfast, slightly antiquated glamor of an oil painting brought to life. 

But after speaking to Burns and Forgash for a few minutes, I was just as intrigued by the cake as I was by their oil and water dynamic: Burns’ boundless creativity and dynamism and Forgash’s focus and intentionality. At one point, when I asked if they ever modified the recipes, Burns declared  that she would, but Forgash shook his head affectionately, “It’s an institution!” She responded, “It’s a living thing!” There was an exuberant playfulness to their connection. “Adam!” Cathy exclaimed at one point as he was telling me about her many accolades, “You really love me!”

Burns is not only a baker; she’s also a doula, an herbalist, a writer, and an actress. You might recognize her as Malcolm's teacher in Malcolm in the Middle. Or from her memoir and children’s books. Or as the character of “Mother Nature” in a series of 2010s Tampax commercials. But one of her most impactful jobs has been making cakes for the bar. Inspired by late-night dessert clubs in Toronto, or maybe by the specific Los Angeles bakery Sweet Lady Jane’s—Adam and Cathy’s accounts vary—the duo always knew they wanted cake to be a central feature at Dynaco from the very beginning. Initially, in 2013, they served slices with a glass of full fat milk. Now, the milk is off the menu, it would usually go bad before the entire carton was finished, but the cake persists. On a late afternoon in August, I sat down with Forgash and Burns over dirty martinis and goldfish to chat about Dynaco’s origins, the trauma of the cake-quinox, and Forgash’s secret foray into baking the cakes himself.

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How did you start Dynaco?

Adam: My brother and I started working on it in 2011. He’s a film editor with anxiety. I was working in advertising and hated it. 

Cathy: Adam wrote copy at Ralph Lauren, which he found extremely oppressive because he could only use words like “heritage” and “preppy.” 

Adam: Two different friends of mine and my brother’s had started successful bars—Rope, Hotbird, Brooklyn Social and Henry Public—and they encouraged us to make the jump. 

We were at a gig seeing a band called Phenomenal Handclap Band. All the people were young but dressed in things like buckskin and bell bottoms. It felt like we were in the 1970s. I always loved that time and wanted to build a place for those people. 

This building used to be full of plumbing supplies. Before that it was a bodega, and legend has it that Biggie Smalls used it as a stash house. There's footage on YouTube of him freestyling in the front.

You knew immediately that you wanted cake to be part of Dynaco. Why was it so important to you to serve it?

Cathy: I often go out to dinner or to a bar and people want to go to another bar afterwards. I'm five feet tall. I just can't drink that much, but I still want to hang out. I thought, ‘I would totally go to more bars if I could just sit with everybody and eat cake.’ 

Do the cake flavors change throughout the year?

Cathy: They do. There are three. 

Adam: Spring to summer is carrot cake. Currently, we’re on the cusp of the cake-quinox. 

Cathy: Can you feel it in the air? I love that you said that, Adam.

Adam: In the fall it’s chocolate cake. Then in the winter we go to Guinness stout cake. 

Cathy: People are really attached to their favorite cake. The cake-quinox is traumatizing for some. But sometimes when we change flavors, people get really into the new one. 

Adam: People in the neighborhood know. They’re always asking me when it’s switching over. One guy comes in specifically during carrot cake season. People have also sent us emails asking if they can reserve whole cakes for parties here. And, a customer of ours got married recently and we baked their cake [It was the carrot cake].

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