"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again."

There's been several instances where my macarons have come out beautiful. (After the numerous batches of macarons, it's ok if I say they're beautiful. Mainly because less than 10% have actually come out to be beautiful. Tant pis.) But when they come out to be so beautiful, I'm just trilled. Relieved. Excited. Just look at how beautiful they are!

:)

Success in the form of a macaron. A rose flavored macaron.

On the Holidays

This time last year I was enjoying my first set of holidays in Europe. I remember expressing my excitement to Thomas for Christmas and everything about Christmas. The festivities, the displays, the food, the music. Ah, but there was no Christmas music on the radios though; least not to the amount that we Americans have on our radio stations.

Well why not? I ask.

Well, because we are secular here in France, he replied rather stupefied by my question. We have religious freedom here.

Ah, indeed. Christmas is indeed a Christian holiday with many references to biblical events. Many popular Christmas songs sing of Jesus and his birth and in France, things are different. Though there were occasional songs on the radio that expressed the holiday spirit, it still wasn’t as much as in the States. It wasn’t pumped out nonstop through the radio. Instead, if you cared for it, you can listen to it on your own, instead of in shops, stores, restaurants, everywhere you went.

And so I wonder, which is better? An atmosphere so filled with Christmas spirit that it infuses it into everything through music so the idea of a Christmas without Christmas songs doesn’t feel right, or an atmosphere that limits Christmas-ness so that more of the public can enjoy the holiday spirit.

On Remodeling

My parents have been talking about remodeling the house for years now. One reason or another, it always got postponed. In all honesty, I don’t think I ever quite understood any of their postponements. But nevertheless, the remodeling has begun today on the 12th of November.

Perhaps it was the daunting nature of such a large project. With such a project like remodeling, with its time commitments and monetary commitments, it’s no wonder why some would be hesitant towards it.

But today the walls come down. The workers came in and started demolishing the backyard. Work it may be, but to be paid to tear things down must be fun. Just like the little kid that took pleasure in running into a tower built of building blocks or the house of cards. Sure it took lots of effort and careful placement to stack the cards or the blocks to such a level, but that one immediate moment of watching it all fall after a swift karate chop or a single misplacement of a card make many kids squeal with excitement. All that effort gone in a few seconds.

But change is a good thing. It’s time for a new house, or rather a change in the old house. They’re tearing down walls to build new additions. To move forward towards a brand new house. Well, moderately brand new. And now, as the building is getting done, it’s too late to go backwards and recant our efforts. A new room, a new kitchen, a new old house.

Exciting.

On Macaron Obsessions

Obsessions are bad. Obsessions are time consuming. Obsessions lead to multiple batches of macarons in search of the perfect batch.

Back when I had my macaron craze, I at least had a craze. I had something that motivated me, something that compelled me to do things until the wee hours of the morning. I’d get up, change, and start measuring out the ingredients. I’d mix and measure and watch, all the time making sure things didn’t look like the last batch. Egg whites beaten until stiff peaks formed, sugar and water boiled until they were syrupy, tant-pour-tant mixed and ground to a fine consistency without any large chunks.

All done for my quest to make the perfect macarons.

Batch after batch, I’d make it, trying out new combinations, different orders, different amounts; all while changing the flavor and in hopes that this batch would be better than the previous one. Too wet, too flat, too soft, too sweet, too sticky. Broken, dented, separated, over-beaten, under-beaten, ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Batch after batch, something was always wrong. From almost perfect to completely disastrous, I still couldn’t find my perfect batch. So another batch would be necessary. And then another. And another.

In hindsight, Batch #1 set the bar too high for the rest of the batches. By following a recipe I had found online to a T, I managed to create a decent batch of macarons in that first attempt. The shell was nice and sturdy while the inside was still soft and slightly gooey. They came off the parchment paper without any trouble and they had the perfect little “feet” – the essential ruffled fringe that makes a macaron a macaron – on the bottom. Some of the fringed bottoms were crooked (due to under-beating or too high of heat, I’m still not sure), and I hadn’t realized yet that the tips wouldn’t flatten on their own (definitely due to under-beating). No matter the tiny flaws that my first batch had, I had still moderately succeeded in creating the quintessential French macaron.

But, as they say, a miss is as good as a mile.

And I wasn’t going to have any part in “almost perfect” macarons.

And that meant Batch #2, 3, 4, and x, y, and z (Batch x, y, and z were because I lost count as to how many batches I made.). (I never quite understood why when using variables one starts with x. Wouldn’t it have been more logical to start with a? Ponder ponder…)

Batch #2 failed miserably. Over confidence in my abilities to remember amounts caused me to measure amounts incorrectly, thus making my syrup not syrup at all. Turns out eyeballing it doesn’t work if you don’t even have the correct amounts. The outcome: macarons that don’t dry, which in turn doesn’t cook properly, and aren’t salvageable. Not even worth pulling out my camera. Epic fail. Lessons learned: follow recipes! The second attempt is not the time to get cocky and measure via memory.

Batch #3, definitely a step up from Batch #2, but still not even Batch #1 caliber. Non existent feet, too soft a shell, cracks. Lesson learned: Less sugar. Keep trying.

Batch #4 and 5 and 6. Again, too soft, no feet, lumpy. Again. Again. Again. At this point I was ready to give up. Batch after batch were failing and I couldn’t figure out why. I scoured the blogosphere for reasons to why my macarons refused to be macarons. Google, YouTube, Blogspot, someone give me the answers! Each blog said the same thing about the consistency of the batter: fold until it “flows like lava”. WTF. “Flows like lava”?? Batch after batch I chased this elusive “flows like lava” consistency only to have my macarons look like the pictures on blogs labeled “over-beaten” or “under-beaten”. “Temperature too high” or “temperature too low”. If my friends hadn’t gotten diabetes yet with the sugary-sweet macarons I’d be surprised. Were my semi-successes just flukes? Was it just a chance encounter with success? Was that as good as it gets? Should I call it quits? I was already spending quite a lot on ingredients. What was I going to do with all the egg yolks that I wasn’t using? I had already scoured American specialty stores for almond flour (only to realize it was quite a bit cheaper at an Indian market).

Fortunately my parents didn’t mind. If you’re going to do something, they said, do it right. Don’t stop till you get it. And so I continued. Till 3AM I continued. All in search for that perfect batch of macarons.

Then comes x! Success! Well, close to success. A lot closer than ever before in my macaron obsession. Beautiful lift off. Still a bit on the sweet side, but it’s a work in progress. Some of Batch x still had some lumpy tops and some cracks, but it topped Batch #1 so I accepted it and all its failures. They still didn’t look like Pierre Hermé, Ladurée, or any French macaron I’ve seen, but the resemblance was there. So close to perfection I could taste it. Mango macarons with mango and chocolate filling. What a hit with my taste testers! After all the failed attempts, this reinstated my confidence that I was a decent baker. What an ego boost! And just the encouragement I needed to push me back into my obsession. With that semi-success now in my macaron history, I was sure I could make that perfect macaron. That perfect macaron was possible. Those semi-successes weren’t just flukes or lucky shots. There was hope for the perfect macaron.

But success isn’t success until it can be recreated. So, after a bit of a hiatus, Batch y comes into existence. Only I had gotten cocky again and assumed that by now I knew the measurements. Well, you know what they say about assuming. And so Batch y comes to its unsightly end in the macaron graveyard. So sad.

Batch z! Clearly the recipe I was following wasn’t doing it for me. Why I didn’t change recipes earlier? Well because I thought that it was me that was failing at it. I was tweaking the recipe here and there so it must have been me. Plus, it was the same recipe I saw in at least three other blogs. So it must have been good. Well as it turns out, there are better recipes out there. And Batch z proves it! Success in the form of macarons! Prettier than ever! Perfect feet this time, evenly distributed throughout the entire batch! Smooth tops, nice and squishy in the center. No air pocket inside. And not diabetes-inducingly sweet! Horray!

Ah success in the form of the perfect macaron. How delightful.

Well no, not quite success just yet. Because, like I said, a success isn’t a success unless it can be recreated.

And so perhaps it’s time for my next batch.


And perhaps obsessions aren't that bad after all.

On Love (The Unbearable Lightness of Being. pg 297-298)

From this jumble of ideas came the sacrilegious thought that Tereza could not shake off: the love that tied her to Karenin was better than the love between her and Tomas. Better, not bigger. Tereza did not wish to fault either Tomas or herself; she did not wish to claim that they could love each other more. Her feeling was rather that, given the nature of the human couple, the love of man and woman is a priori inferior to that which can exist (at least in the best instances) in the love between man and dog, that oddity of human history probably unplanned by the Creator.

It is a completely selfless love: Tereza did not want anything of Karenin; she did not ever ask him to love her back. Nor had she ever asked herself the questions that plague human couples: Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.

And something else: Tereza accepted Karenin for what he was; she did not try to make him over in her image; she agreed from the outset with his dog’s life, did not wish to deprive him of it, did not envy him his secret intrigues. The reason she trained him was not to transform him (as a husband tries to reform his wife and a wife her husband), but to provide him with the elementary language that enabled them to communicate and live together.

Then too: No one forced her to love Karenin; love for dogs is voluntary. (Tereza was again reminded of her mother, and regretted everything that had happened between them. If her mother had been one of the anonymous women in the village, she might well have found her easygoing coarseness agreeable. Oh, if only her mother had been a stranger! From childhood on, Tereza had been ashamed of the way her mother occupied the features of her face and confiscated her “I”. What made it even worse was the age-old imperative “Love your father and mother!” forced her to agree with that occupation, to call the aggression love! It was not her mother’s fault that Tereza broke with her. Tereza broke with her not because she was the mother she was but because she was a mother.)

If Karenin had been a person instead of a dog, he would surely have long since said to Tereza, “Look, I’m sick and tired of carrying that roll in my mouth every day. Can’t you come up with something different?” And therein lies the whole of man’s plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

Yes, happiness is the longing for repetition, Tereza said to herself.