to set the tone...

This is my kitchen on a normal day.

1. Translucent plastic ruler left on a dark baking sheet (it blended in) and left to bake at 350 for about 8 minutes. I though it was going to stick but with some elbow grease I managed to pull it off AND not burn myself. If it weren't hot pink it would look like bacon, right? Kind of appetizing, except not.

2. Today I made Michael Ruhlman's sponge cake recipe (on the two optional elements, baking powder and butter, I used the former and used 5 out of the possible 16 [!!] Tbsps of the latter---I daresay it was the perfect amount). It looked great coming out of the oven, but after I gently poked a toothpick in to check for doneness, it started slowly sinking. And sinking. Until the middle was less than half the height of the rest. You see:

This is to say nothing of the obvious problem I had with the cake sticking to the pan. As a sure sign of growing maturity and patience, whereas maybe two years ago (okay last year) I would have thrown a Kitchen Tantrum upon beholding an hour of careful measuring, mixing, and baking result in that, today I took a deep breath and determined that all was not lost. No need to freak out. After trying a cookie cutter that wasn't tall enough, I started marking circles with it and then cutting them out with a paring knife. This way I got most of the spongey part of the cake---which did not require beating egg whites and is tastier and richer than the previous sponge cake recipe I tried---and they can still be halved horizontally and made into mini Boston cream pies. (The scraps from the cutting and some of the gooey middle part that sunk I crumbled and threw in the freezer in case I get the urge to make birthday cake ice cream or something someday.)

It's honestly good enough that even I, with my compulsion to add more sugar and/or chocolate to most anything cake-like, would eat it plain in a heartbeat. Thanks Chef R. (Sorry if you ever read this and it causes you shame and embarrassment to be associated with the near-disaster pictured above.)

Having my ciabatta turn out perfectly is becoming more and more of a normal occurrence. It's nice to have a constant in one's life when everything else is so uncertain and liable to failure. ;)