Next Friday (March 3), we will publish episode 2, series 3 of the pod. Our book for this one is Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow, and like the vast majority, we loved it.
But it wasn’t until about a third of the way in that the story really clicked for Sophie.
And this got us thinking and talking about how much of an investment we ‘should’ make in books or recipes.
How many pages do you read before putting a book down? Are you with the 38% of people in Good Reads’ survey who finish no matter what? Or do you subscribe to the theory that you should read at least 50 pages before deciding to put a book down (with the addendum that after your 50th birthday, you can minus the number of pages from 100; so if you’re 99 years old, you can call it after one page).
And with cooking, how many grainy bechamels or flat, foot-less trays of macarons can you bear before deciding leaving it to the professionals? More on this to come in next week’s episode. But for now…lets make pastry.
Happily, our letter this episode coincided with this very question - when to give up on a book or recipe that is not sparking joy?
It was such a great letter (thank you if this was yours- we loved it), with pastry cited as one of those recipes she’s preparing to give up on, it proving unsuccessful and frustrating over the years.
And this got me (Sophie) thinking that now would be a good time to share a super easy recipe that I hope will give our letter writer and any frustrated pastry maker a bit more confidence on this front. The recipe is below and video demo above (it’s a bit long, so feel free to skip it or skip ahead as you go).
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