*Cover image/thumbnail from The Toronto Star.*
Brand to look for when shopping secondhand
RAVE.
I had already written on an ’80s/’90s mall muffin stand when I was looking into the history of the brand RAVE, and coincidentally came across this article about it called “Mall stores of the '80s and '90s we miss: A look back.” A grainy picture of a rave storefront is captioned: “We cannot find any information on this one. But we know it existed, because we were there.” (found poetry?)
Another article on Cosmopolitan, titled “All the Stores You Loved in the '90s That No Longer Exist,” claims that “If the name isn’t clear enough, this is where the Cool Kids™ shopped when Hot Topic was too crowded.” I do not claim any 90s kid (or, for that matter, Cool Kid™) stolen valor - I was in diapers for the end of the 20th century and came into my mall-going own in the early 2010s. But I can relate to mall nostalgia. I remember, in vivid detail, the first time my friend Hailey and I were allowed to go to the mall without a chaperone. I remember how much potential a $20 bill represented, and how quickly my budget was whittled down after a trip to the food court. And, of course, I remember the smells: Cinnabon, soft pretzels, Bath and Body Works candles, leather bags, cardboard boxes, floor wax, and MAC eyeshadows.
Hot Topic didn’t come to Canada until 2010, but I imagine that RAVE was the cool-older-girl version of La Senza Girl or Bluenotes: places with clothes that were, let’s face it, not really made to last. But these clothes were also made during a time when you WOULD re-wear the $10 top, because you were probably coveting it for a while. No online shopping, no Pinterest boards, just a mental list of clothes the girls in the older grades were wearing and a dream. And I do feel like there’s something special about wearing these items now, imbued with the spirit of whatever (pre)teen had to save up their babysitting money to buy them.
I found so many good items from rave on Poshmark from RAVE that I’ve had to divide this into categories, but let it be known, I’ve also seen a LOT of RAVE clothing in secondhand stores like L Train Vintage here in New York.
Tops
Pink cherry blossom top (size XL)
Sheer black sparkly top (size XL)
Cream lace-trim camisole (size XS)
Jackets
Cerulean corduroy sherpa jacket (size M)
Tan suede blazer (size S)
Sweaters
“Princess” track sweater (size S)
Brown-and-black fringe sweater (size M)
Skirts
Black buckle midi skirt (size M)
Brown and baby blue stretch skirt (size XL juniors) (this colour combo!)
Sheer lined blue floral midi skirt (size L)
What I’ve been reading
Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette is about a group of sisters sent from their convent in Buffalo to work at a home in Providence called Little Neon for formerly incarcerated individuals and people recovering from substance abuse addiction. The story centers around 29-year-old Sister Agatha, who is grappling with her relationship to the church, her sexuality, and the persistent feeling that she never has the right thing to say. As much as I grew to love Agatha, my favourite part about the book is that Luchette develops the “side” characters so fully. She’s able to conjure up entire backstories, personalities, and struggles so succinctly, it took barely any time for me to feel like I knew everyone personally - including Tim Gary, a resident of Little Neon who lost half his jaw to cancer and throws himself full-throttle into the sisters’ planned activities. At one point, Tim Gary tells the sisters about his ex-wife, recounting his last happy memory with her before she left him:
“The winter Tim Gary fell sick, his wife took him to the Sears in Warwick. It had been forever since he’d been in a mall. They stood together on the same stair of the escalator, and it brought them high up into the air, and in the space between one floor and the next, he and his wife let go of each other’s hands and looked out at the wild terrain: noisy and sleek and bright, aglow with colors and humming with life. They soared up over the food court and leaned their heads back: above them was a ceiling so high and vast and luminous, it was as if the sky they’d known – the place from which balloons never returned, blue and dreamy and faraway – had been replaced with this new pale heaven.”
File under: the magic of the mall.
Recipe on repeat
Aimee (@yungkombucha420)’s muffin recipe (Summer berry, Fall pumpkin - and soon-to-be Winter gingerbread editions).
Everybody knows that the mall visit is centered around the mall snack, and if the early 2000s mall-goers (AKA, my middle school self) had frozen yogurt, then the ’90s mall-goers had muffins. Providing historical context and commentary on a once-ubiquitous treat for mall-goers (and my mom), “The rise and fall of the ’90s muffin” is a perfect piece of journalism. Food writer Karon Liu investigates how the Canadian chain store Marvellous Mmmufins (aka mmmuffins) went from 130 locations to just 1. It has all the elements of a great tragedy: an unlikely hero (not really - the founder Michael Bregman went to Wharton and Harvard); the rise of good (muffins) against evil (other fast-casual chains, amassing a cult following of people who still talk about the mmmuffins muffins with reverence); and a violent defeat (the muffin trend was eventually usurped by the cupcake craze).
Liu isn’t the only one who’s written about this - there are several other articles, and extensive Reddit threads, memorializing mmmuffins. My mom has waxed poetic about the chocolate chip mmmuffin she would get at the mall after school (speaking of which, bring back the Tim Hortons crunchy sugar topping on the chocolate chip muffin - nothing has been the same since they changed the recipe).
Which brings me back to Aimee’s muffin recipe. Mmmuffins and Aimee have a lot in common. Both dedicated countless hours “tinkering with [their recipes], trying to get the batter to rise and spill over the muffin tin to create a tasty and textured top.” Both have captivated the attention of muffin lovers and passive muffin enjoyers alike. I never got to try mmmuffins, but I can tell you that Aimee is an artist who has perfected her craft, and succeeded in creating a recipe with the ideal balance of textured topping and even crumb. Just like clothing, what goes around comes around in the world of food trends…and Aimee is spearheading the muffin resurgence.
Way to say I love you
Make someone a basket of homemade muffins. Is this a lazy suggestion given the fact that I just dedicated several paragraphs to muffins? But who wouldn’t want a hand-held wicker basket lined with a gingham towel and filled with fresh muffins…maybe with a hand-written note including the recipe…
Things that feel important, but aren’t
The nutritional value in a muffin vs. a donut (I was plagued, as a child, by a CBC radio segment where they proclaimed that Tim Horton’s donuts are actually “better for you” than their muffins, providing exact caloric values and grams of sugar in each item; those truly useless statistics were imprinted on my CHILD brain! To what benefit!)
Things that don’t feel important, but are
A generous sprinkling of turbinado sugar on your muffin tops for a satisfying crunch
appreciate this nostalgia-drenched missive!