“Are you OK?” “You’ve been so quiet.” “What’s going on?”

A few people have noticed and asked, not just about the sudden absence of posts over the past few weeks (after there having been so many), but concerning an overall lessening of any type of communication coming from this corner. Even though plenty of abstract thoughts have been filtering through my head, I haven’t been able to articulate them enough in order to write any of them down. Something will go around in my mind, then suddenly it’s “meh,” and it floats away. Concurrently, I haven’t felt like going anywhere, while simultaneously wanting to go far away from here. There is way too much to say and yet absolutely nothing to be said. Energy better spent elsewhere has been wasted scrolling around the internet, playing word games, reading only parts of things, going off on tangents, down rabbit holes.

For some reason, while I’ve been getting lost looking at these distractions, there has been a recipe that repeatedly keeps showing up in my social media feed, which is an attractive holiday chocolate puff pastry that resembles a snowflake. Why this thing, what the algorithm is which causes this particular recipe (and similar versions) to show up is unclear. But it has found me. It contains only four ingredients and is supposed to be “easy” to make. Easy has lured me in. Since Thanksgiving was going to be spent at one of my daughter’s homes in a much smaller configuration than in previous years, it might be nice to attempt making this simple yet complicated-looking puff pastry to contribute, along with the usual pumpkin pie.

Notice the word “attempt” being used in relation to baking. The truth is that I don’t like to bake, which is a subject that’s been mentioned a number of times in this blog. I love cooking and the flexibility that cooking allows. Baking is just a bit too rigid for me. It requires Patience. It involves Directions. Too often I’ve interjected a bit of flexibility into my baking, which I suppose is something that will work if you are good at baking to begin with. But I am not, so these meanderings don’t often end well. Past frustrations, among others, included The Hamentaschen Fail (March 18. 2014).

Further thoughts on this caused me to reflect on a time many years ago, when an adept baking friend who made holiday cookies and confections annually to give as gifts hesitated to share a certain recipe with me. As I recall, the reason was because she felt it was her signature thing to do…..perhaps she was concerned I might make them and gift them to the same people (although we had no real overlap of friends), or that if I shared it with others then they might start making them and gift them to someone she knew. I forget the details, but she need not have ever worried, because that kind of thing is so not in my wheelhouse. With good reason, aside from brownies, I never have and never will make any cookies or confections for anyone as a gift. Ever.

So these extremely easy to follow, step by step videos of how to make a chocolate puff pastry snowflake kept popping up, with their lovely twisted filo dough points. It must be a sign, those points pointing to a Thanksgiving treat that will impress the family. Looks fancy but ridiculously simple and kind of fun. Because it appeared a bit fragile, I bought all the ingredients and brought them to my daughter’s house to assemble and bake there.

Although I followed the instructions exactly, stopping the video at each step along the way, it became apparent a scant few minutes into this project that it was going horribly wrong. There are supposed to be lovely, tidy, even twists of white dough radiating out from the center. But this dough would not cooperate, it kept breaking, and the chocolate kept bleeding through. This is what it looked like before going into the oven – which is nothing like the soft, doughy out-turned arms demonstrated in the videos. Mine resembled a giant, squashed spider. Each time I look at this photo I can’t help but crack up laughing, while secretly thinking, “What the hell is wrong with me?”

“Perhaps when it bakes it will puff up or something,” I said (rather hopefully, while not really believing it) to my daughter. She was really good about not making fun of it and kept an almost stoic face…..but I did catch a look, and all of a sudden I could not stop laughing. As a matter of fact, I was laughing so hard that I almost (yes really almost) peed my pants. I am serious – there is no time in recent memory that has brought me to that level of hilarity. It should have gone into the garbage, but at that point I was still holding on to a shred of hope that it might magically transform somehow. So into the oven it went.

And then this happened – few minutes later my son-in-law informed me that “We have a situation here” – that situation being the copious amount of dark smoke that suddenly began billowing out of the stove.

At this point, tears of laughter were running down my face. The house was filled with acrid smoke. The snowflake did not puff up, although it came just short of totally bursting into a ball of flames – despite the fact it had not even approached anywhere near the recommended baking time. The squished, burnt dough-spider went into the trash, but not before we all took photos of it.

Because I just could not accept the fact that my easy, four-ingredient, chocolate puff pastry snowflake was a massive fail, I actually attempted to make a second one. It didn’t burn this time, but looked almost as bad. Despite how unappetizing #2 appeared, we tasted it and it was okay (I guess), but not all that impressive. Certainly not worth trying for a third.

I laughed the entire time I was writing this. I’m laughing now. Perhaps something this ridiculous was necessary in order to reset my head.