The Number Field

For a long time, Jenny wanted to take a cake decorating class. This month she and two of her friends managed to find time in their schedules, and they're all taking the class together. In preparation for the class, Jenny had the chance to discover some new gadgets, including Bake Even Strips , which are pretty cool--they keep the cake level while it bakes.

The introductory class was last week, but last night was the first day that they made and decorated cakes. Jenny chose flowers for her cake's theme:

There was one small hitch: last Sunday we noticed that we had been eating too many sweets and resolved not to eat any desserts this week. I don't think that we thought that plan all the way through. The cake was very tempting, but instead of eating it ourselves, Jenny brought it to the math building and I sent out an email titled "Free Cake" to my fellow graduate students. The cake disappeared in minutes, and I got some nice thank-yous that mentioned how beautiful and tasty it was. I guess that's almost as good as having some myself.