around the corner

while i set out to find inspiration for a meal at the market, it was pouring rain. generally, i like the rain, as long as i'm dressed for it. it keeps the crowds away. my gigantic umbrella provides an oddly pleasurable sense of privacy in a public space. but yesterday was a "pick up what you need, and move on" kind of day. mostly because there were better things awaiting me a few blocks from the market. NY Cake & Bake.

this week was the first time i'd stepped foot into this well-known establishment. somehow i wound up there twice in two days. once for a walk through and to pick up a b-day gift for my niece, then again yesterday to get serious.

i had a master plan to make not one, not two, but three fancy-pants martha stewart cookies. martha always seems to find her way back onto my radar. she's a perfectionist guru. she makes the simplest things grossly overcomplicated. so much so that her daughter now has a show that's entire purpose is to mock the impractical nature of her projects. martha makes sense to me, completely. i think to myself, we'll see whose laughing when i have a media empire built on my neurosis!

so i made cookies. lots and lots of very pretty cookies. 2 am, neck aching from hunching over the table placing symetrical dots on the backs of chocolate ladybugs. it was that kind of evening. entirely satisfying, once i hid all the smears, bleeding icing, and bunnies that had lost their limbs.