THE FINAL STRAW: BEER AND CUPCAKES

    The whole Greenwich Village cupcake shop thing was already way out of control. "Thanks" to mentions of the Magnolia Bakery in Sex and the City and The Devil Wears Prada, hordes of starstruck provincials (i.e., anyone not from Manhattan), mainly women in their late twenties or early thirties sporting those newsboy caps just like Britney wears, prowl my neighborhood in search of the oh-so-sinfully fattening comfort food, desperately seeking to make their humdrum, cubicle farm lives imitate what I will call in the loosest possible terms "art."  They are "television tourists" — people who visit places purely because they saw them on a TV show.
    But now we have "cupcake, wine and beer pairings"?  That is just wrong.  Nothing like washing back a generous mouthful of sugar and saturated fat with a crisp, refreshing gulp of beer, I always say.
    Let's hope the economic downturn does away with these infernally useless places and their three-dollar cupcakes.