To be completely honest, there are times when I am my own worst enemy in the kitchen. I find recipes that sound perfect and are photographed impeccably, and they give me culinary epiphanies where I realize this will be the greatest dish ever and I have to make this immediately, but then I continue reading and discover countless comments claiming the recipe to be a garbage worthy failure. And yet I think I can beat this, I can make this recipe into the jewel it is supposed to be. And, inevitably, I find I cannot beat this. I cannot make this recipe into the jewel it is supposed to be.

Oh, I still try. Despite repeated failures, I still try to fix it. Occasionally I win, usually I throw in the towel. This past month, I have barely made one recipe that works correctly and tastes wonderful because I seem to keep picking/being drawn to the duds. Then I look back on the week and realize I fed my family unsaveable disasters (if they’re lucky), or, in many cases nothing.

As with most things I had to go full circle. We went out to a little French Cafe for lunch a few weeks ago and in my stubbornness I ordered duck confit, absolutely positive it would be superior to my husband’s humble quiche lorraine. It’s duck people. It’s the best. It’s posh snobbery, like the French do so well, and snubs its nose at such things as diced up ham and softened leeks in a shell of egg custard. I mean really.

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Shhhhhh. The baby is sleeping. Finally. The husband had the audacity to leave our home office and get whisked away to the Big Apple on a business trip for three whole days taking my dutiful put-baby-down-for-nap  and wake-baby-up-from-nap partner, leaving me the bad guy.

This guy also took my daily dose of grown up as it’s just me and baby in the house…alone. Albeit, I am glad to take a break from our most frequent conversation topic:

Josh: Hey, his diaper needs to be changed.

…

Josh: Then I want him back.

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So my attempt at getting back into my pre-pregnancy routine has failed miserably. Dinners now consist of drive by stops at the supermarket because I want something quick and easy (read: tomato soup with a sprinkling of cheddar cheese) or take out (read: Chic Fil’ A cookies and cream milkshakes are my mother blood). The days of even a quick salad doused in some vinegar (ette) are over as that braise was apparently a one time deal. Fortunately this bothers me more than my other anxious half as he is drowning his worries in a jar of nutella — and we’re talking the super plus size jar, not the normal 9-ouncer. (ahem, thanks mom!)

We’ve been taking a birthing class, and yes I know I sound totally hippy right now, but according to my hospital’s stats, 98% of us knocked up groaning women call for the anesthesiologist and their 8-inch needle before too long. And, well, not to gross you out, as I’m told it is a fact of life (but one even I must draw the line at when we are here to talk about food (yet here I go because pregnancy makes/forces you to become comfortable talking about all sorts of things, which yes I will draw the line at naming)) but we watched a birthing video and I think we are both still trying to recover from what exactly happens. Down there. To me (he just gets to sit back and watch and say haha woman, that’s what you get for nagging me about starting a family.)

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Huevos Racheros. I imagine this would be my daily breakfast had I actually been able to cruise along the coast of Mexico last week instead of diverting my plans due to lame rules. Or it could be my new sudden obsession in this whole wave of pregnancy cravings. First breakfast, then vinegar and now anything that can be wrapped up in a soft tortilla shell and have cheese and sour cream smothered on top.

Regrettably, I don’t have much authentic mexican food to compare this with as this is my take on the whole runny fried egg on an open faced salsa topped taco (which is an ingenious magical idea, I tell you) but if I had actually been interested in eating food while honeymooning in Riviera Maya almost four years ago instead of napping on beach beds and getting sun blisters from being too busy to remember to put on sunscreen (since there are entirely more important things to be doing), I think it would be something like this.

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