Fail! Try again, please.

2010 rolled in and I celebrated by sleeping. It hit midnight and I was already dreaming. Upon hearing the response to being asked what wild antics I encountered on January 1st, people either gave me a pitiful look or wished they would have done the same thing. Sleep, my friend, is a lost art. No one knows how to do it properly anymore and if neglected, it completely fucks you up (excuse my language, but there is no other way to pinpoint the magnitude of lack of sleep). It didn’t bother me that people thought I was pathetic enough to spend the first moment of the new decade in bed, sleeping by myself. As you already know, I just cannot stand to celebrate the passing of time. It really is an issue I need to take up with a psychiatrist soon.

New Year’s also forces me to take responsibility for the mistakes I made during the past 12 months. It is a time that puts me in my place, for better or worse, good or bad. I usually have to face the facts with what I have done and what I need to improve, otherwise I am bound to repeat myself. But any wise person will tell you that mistakes are made for a reason. You live and learn. You let go and become a better person. In the end, it is worth the heartache and defeat to acknowledge the fact that you can float with your head above the water.

The same notion applies to the recipes I make for this blog. People ask me how I decide what to write or what to feature and I usually say they are mainly things I have never made and want to see if I can. Sometimes it is a success. Other times it is an utter failure. Case in point: cheese profiteroles or bunuelos (the version I was actually trying to bake off). It was a disaster, resulting in rock hard cheese puffs you could employ as a weapon, as you can see in the first two photographs. Bunuelos are essentially cheese profiteroles fried in a vat of oil. They are light, puffy, and have a hint of cheesy flavor. Mine were hard, chewy, and would have made lovely paper weights. I was obviously disappointed. Here was another venture that proved once again I was not invincible in the kitchen.

Oh, but there is a stubborn side to my personality. Tell me I have done badly and I will attempt to do better the next time around. Call it survival of the fittest or a defect from my childhood. Sometimes stubbornness does win out in the end despite it being a total bitch to deal with. Knowing I must have done something completely wrong, I tried again, crossed my fingers and hoped that I would not screw up. Instead of adding the cheese to the batter, I thought it a better idea to sprinkle it on top, assuming that the oil from the cheese was rendering my puffs into rocks of a chewy disposition. I still wanted to bake them off, only because my lazy side doesn’t like dealing without leftover oil. The result? Airy, hollow puffs with a hint of cheese. I was so proud of my second attempt that I made a plain version and treated myself to a poor man’s chocolate eclair, no cream just chocolate sauce. In the end, my failure was no longer a failure. To be realistic, it doesn’t always conclude that way. But to be optimistic, it should.