UPDATED: how to be a domestic drunk

As most train wrecks do, this started with the very best intentions.

I love to cook. It is therapeutic, creates a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction and is one of the very few only hobbies I partake in where I actually follow the rules.

So, I thought I would step away from my stove and dive into the oven! No, not like Sylvia Plath. I'm talking about baking! The fact that I hate sweets, chocolate, and lack the patience to execute recipes with the precision baking requires were all completely irrelevant. I wanted to go Donna Reed on my kitchen, and nothing was gonna stop me... Or so I thought...

Per my good friend's recommendation, I recently purchased Nigella Lawson's Bible on baking and comfort food: How To Be A Domestic Goddess. 

The very first recipe I saw was for Chocolate Raspberry Tarts. Again, I hate chocolate, but the picture was so delicious looking I felt like I was looking at porn for the morbidly obese. I was dead set on making them. Partly because they looked so pretty and but mainly because I spent money on a cookbook and had to justify the purchase by going out and spending even more money on baking crap to bake these beautiful little desserts!

Again, not to eat, but so I could upload a 'look what I can do' picture to facebook eliciting jealousy and hatred from my gay friends who have been living on steamed Tic Tacs and diet water because it is pool season and no one judges you like a gay guy with a vodka tonic in hand wearing a bathing suit that looks like it came from a Baby GAP.

Anyway, I read the recipe and headed to the store for the ingredients and the pans I needed. After perusing three different stores, I was unable to locate the 5" tart pans the recipe called for. I was defeated, still wearing my work clothes, and tired of being judged by the shoppers at Crate & Barrel who were watching me furiously walk in circles around the store and were probably thinking I was casing the joint. 

So... I bought three bottles of wine and went home and downed one of them while I looked sadly at the recipe I failed to complete. 

Halfway into said bottle, I logged into Amazon.com, ordered the pans, drank the rest of my wine, and watched Desperate Housewives.

This is me baking AKA 'having it all.'

For now, I will wait the 5-7 business days to receive my pans. Until that joyous day, I have two more bottles of wine... which will most definitely not be enough... Damn my lack of foresight and cheaping out on expedited shipping!!!

Also, if you are looking for good online baking porn, please check out my former coworker's blog. She calls it her hobby, I call it food porn and the start of a small business. www.puresugarbakeshop.blogspot.com

UPDATE: Well I did it. Exactly a week later, I have achieved my goal. I made the tarts, and I was only slightly buzzed! Granted, rolling dough is so frustrating it makes me want to blow up a Chevy Malibu, I wasn't drinking wine. I had to pull out the whiskey.

The moment I finished them, I ran a few over to friend's house for a taste test. Unfortunately, we were all a bit underwhelmed by the end result. They were by no means bad. They were tasty enough. But the shell wasn't sweet enough, and the filling was just OK. 

The recipe needs to be tweeked and tried again. Either that or I need to be drunker  before I eat them...