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Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Peter over at slow reads speaks of following recipes, bringing words to life in a precise manner, following a set of instructions to bring about a transformation.

I want to invite him over for the weekend, and have us cook together. I'm sure it would be blasphemy, yes even and including the baking. This tangle of disorganization that I call my life, it just as surely shows up in the set of instructions I try and relate when someone asks me how I made the dessert. There were typically not less than three recipes used as a starting point, at least four ingredient changes, often major shifts in the whole make up of the dish, until it comes out of the oven unrecognizable as something other than "mine." I don't find myself in the reliable, I suppose.

It's not that I don't sincerely believe that there is a perfect recipe for bread pudding. That it might be better than mine. It's just that I wanted mangos and coconut milk and once those were added, some bittersweet chocolate for the marbling contrast with the orange in the mangoes. It might take an extra hour to bake, but I will know it's done by the way it jiggles, a 3.4 earthquake rather than a 6.1. Wouldn't it be interesting to add some caramel sauce, maybe a touch of hot chile in the sauce to lend a zing to the sweetness?

I have to admit, I couldn't make it again, not precisely. But it was the bread pudding du jour, or is that bread pudding du chef? and no one else's recipe seemed to do. I guess this explains why I don't follow a theoretical tradition, don't color coordinate the rooms of my house, don't add much order to my chaos. I'm quite sure I'd be a failure at any written tradition. I'd try and practice in good faith, wanting to do it right. But in the end, improvisation would take hold and I'd be explaining yet again why I lacked the sort of steady persistance that succeeds with dieting, dispositioning the mail, and following a liturgical calendar.

I think I could use some of Peter's balance though. It gets old blazing a new trail every time, even if it seems to align with my make up, and I never seem to lose weight. Maybe this once, while he's here, I could try and follow his recipe for pecan chocolate chip pie to the letter. I bet its yummy. Especially if we added a shot of Kahlua to the ...
ooops.
Maybe its hopeless. *smile*

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