Lemon Curd (Page 876)

• Wednesday, March 12, 2008 -- 8pm
• Location: Somerville, MA
• Kitchen: Matty's Apartment
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: A-
  

There's no denying it -- I love dessert! Consequently, the dessert situation from The Book is rapidly getting more and more dire. Most things that can be made in a reasonable amount of time with reasonable ingredients and reasonable equipment, I have already made. There are a few exceptions though. For instance: this lemon curd. So a couple weeks ago I bought some angel food cake from Whole Foods, and made the lemon curd from The Book to smother all over it. Matty declared this the best curd he had ever had. It was indeed good. The method was foolproof -- there was no concern about things separating or curdling -- it came together very easily. Lemon curd recipes often mess up the balance of lemon flavor and sweetness, but this curd got it exactly right: bright and lemony, without being too tart to eat. The one bad thing about this curd was that it wasn't quite thick enough. For smothering angel food cake with curd this made no difference at all, but if you wanted to layer a cake with this curd, you could have some serious problems (unless you made very, very careful frosting barriers to keep this curd between the layers). Without careful planning the weight of a cake layer on top of this curd would certainly send it running down the sides of the cake. So would I make this curd again? Definitely, unless I needed a curd to use as cake filling. In that case, I would make a thicker one.

Here is the recipe.

When I was at MIT a few weeks ago, I saw a guy who I briefly dated a few years ago. Dated isn't even the right word. We went on a few dates, whatever you call that. Anyway, I ran into him in the math department (especially odd since he isn't a mathematician). Truth be told, I hardly ran into him. I saw him from a distance, but he didn't even see me. I stood there and stared for a second, and all I could think was, "What was I thinking?" Don't get me wrong, he was a nice guy -- super smart, super cute... the kind of guy most girls would be interested in. But he was so obviously the wrong personality match for me.

Being back at Stanford this week carries with it a lot of memories of old relationships (both good and bad), crushes, etc... And more than once I have thought to myself again, "What was I thinking?" It's a weird to thing to think that I made decisions not-so-many years ago that I can't even get my head around now. And frankly, it's a little scary. I feel like the same person, yet things which seemed completely rational at the time now just seem totally mysterious.

I hope that in ten years when I look back at the life choices I am making now, it will all seem much more reasonable. I think it will. But then again, who knows? Maybe old decisions are like old outfits -- perhaps you are meant to look back a decade later and question, "What was I thinking?"