death rattle of a tart
Not to dwell or anything, but I thought I'd share some final thoughts on my tart debacle.
We kept the hideous, lumpy tart in our fridge and ate some of it -- it's not half bad, but I wouldn't ever bother with it again. Today, I used up the nine (yes, nine!) egg whites left over from the tart (I had used only the yolks in the crust and custard) to make meringue cookies. I made the blobs too big, so they didn't get quite hard, but I kinda like them soft-ish in the middle anyways. They're lovely.
I draw the following conclusions from this experience:
1) Martha Stewart is not, in fact, infallible and sometimes her recipes suck.
2) Do try new recipes, but don't try them for the first time when you're meant to serve them to your husband's boss at a dinner party.
3) When making meringue cookies, use smaller dollops.
4) Raspberry sauce can make everything more delicious.
On another cooking note, this weekend I had to go to the emergency room. I was trying to cook a super-healthy meal (I'll never do THAT again!), and in the process of slicing cabbage in one of those mandoline slicers, I inadvertantly sliced open my hand as well - three nice parallel cuts. They were fairly deep cuts, nothing too horrific, but I went to the ER because their placement (right over the joint on my right thumb) made me worry that any hand movement would cause the healing wounds to reopen, thus making them prone to infection. The ER folks seem to agree, as they gave me four stitches on the big middle cut, and some glue on the smaller two. Actually, the pain from injecting the novacaine and stitching up the cut hurt more than the actual wound did, so I guess (?) that's a good thing. It seems to be healing well, and I'm going to get the stitches out tomorrow morning before I leave. I had to get a tetanus shot, too. Ouchy.
The moral of the story is: order pizza. It's safer.
We kept the hideous, lumpy tart in our fridge and ate some of it -- it's not half bad, but I wouldn't ever bother with it again. Today, I used up the nine (yes, nine!) egg whites left over from the tart (I had used only the yolks in the crust and custard) to make meringue cookies. I made the blobs too big, so they didn't get quite hard, but I kinda like them soft-ish in the middle anyways. They're lovely.
I draw the following conclusions from this experience:
1) Martha Stewart is not, in fact, infallible and sometimes her recipes suck.
2) Do try new recipes, but don't try them for the first time when you're meant to serve them to your husband's boss at a dinner party.
3) When making meringue cookies, use smaller dollops.
4) Raspberry sauce can make everything more delicious.
On another cooking note, this weekend I had to go to the emergency room. I was trying to cook a super-healthy meal (I'll never do THAT again!), and in the process of slicing cabbage in one of those mandoline slicers, I inadvertantly sliced open my hand as well - three nice parallel cuts. They were fairly deep cuts, nothing too horrific, but I went to the ER because their placement (right over the joint on my right thumb) made me worry that any hand movement would cause the healing wounds to reopen, thus making them prone to infection. The ER folks seem to agree, as they gave me four stitches on the big middle cut, and some glue on the smaller two. Actually, the pain from injecting the novacaine and stitching up the cut hurt more than the actual wound did, so I guess (?) that's a good thing. It seems to be healing well, and I'm going to get the stitches out tomorrow morning before I leave. I had to get a tetanus shot, too. Ouchy.
The moral of the story is: order pizza. It's safer.