Zero counterspace and a goal

Recently, I read Julie and Julia and loved it. I can relate to the author, not because I will ever debone a duck or cook anything involving entrails, but because the author was at a crossroads and looking to have some sense of purpose. Me too. But I'm not going to gut a lobster to do it.

I love baking. I rabidly love cake decorating shows (not so much Cake Boss - that guy makes me stabby) and surf Food Network for anything that involves sugar, butter, and some degree of artistic skill. I have attempted to work with fondant, and failed spectacularly, but other than that, I have no real experience with cake decorating.

What would be a better way to learn than from a Martha Stewart book? Well, lots of things actually. Learning from Martha Stewart herself would be the best, but I don't spend much (any) time in the Hamptons. The Culinary Institute of America? Sure. But I have a job, don't care to be a professional chef, and fear that they might make me touch raw chicken among other things, and I am far too picky to eat, much less prepare, gormet food. A class at a local craft store? Undoubtedly, but I don't have much tolerance for the kind of people who take classes at local craft stores.

No, my solution is to work my way through this book:



Unlike Julie Powell, I don't have a timeframe because cooking 175 batches of cupcakes in a year would mean over 3 batches a week and that would shut down my arteries completely or else make total enemies of my coworkers, who generally end up with the bulk of most of the baked goods I make. Instead, I will simply go with it and attempt to actually finish a project without ultimately laying it aside, and maybe by the end, I will have absorbed a little bit of Martha Stewart-ness and begun to understand why people think coconut is a valid part of dessert and what exactly a rhubarb is because I have no idea and mostly was just unaware that it would be something you'd put in a cupcake.

Is it a good thing? That remains to be seen.