here’s the truth about disappointments:
they’re bullshit
and like most things in life,
they’re prevalent
i won’t tell you
how often i’ve been disappointed
by things, by people
because,
like i said,
it’s all bullshit
i will tell you that it all factors
down to perspective
and the adequate handling of it
some would call it avoidance
others would call it compartmentalization
i call it getting on with it
the fact is,
not everything i make in the kitchen
comes out golden
i make plenty of garbage
sometimes inedible
if i’m lucky i can revamp the dish
and salvage it somehow
over thanksgiving i baked a pumpkin challah
it came out tough,
a bit too dense for my liking
the french toast we ended making with it
came out just ok
we had more than half leftover
there had to be something
that could be done to
adequately handle it
and so,
i got on with it
sliced it up real thin
threw it in the oven
and challah chips were born
i included hummus in the pictures
because,
trust me,
just a smattering of
bread crumbs do not make
pretty pictures
i used this pumpkin challah recipe
for hummus, it’s your very typical concoction of chickpeans/garbonzo beans + tahini + lemon juice + salt & pepper + olive oil in the food processor
morestomach 
OH MAN. There are these things in stores in bags called Bagel Chips. I am obsessed with them. The garlic ones, especially, but also cinnamon-raisin. I don’t buy them because I always eat almost the whole bag at once. These look like my jam!! Delicious. SUCH a smart way to salvage what should have been wonderful challah. Disappointment follows me, too, and definitely into the kitchen. It helps make us as awesome as we are, I suppose (speaking optimistically after a couple rather large [financial] disappointments arrived in our lives last week). These lil toasts = bravo!
when i was in college i worked for a bagel shop and the owner showed me how to make bagel chips with the unused bagels leftover from the day before. SO GOOD.
i hope things are ok Sophie. financial disappointments are awful, thoughts & prayers to you!
Wait. Have you taught us how to make bagel chips yet? Did I miss that post? I want to know the things!
I’m sending good thoughts to Sophie as well…
You ROCK !!! I loved your introduction about disappointments in life and wasn’t sure where you were heading with it but if baking a pumpkin Challa turned out to be a disappointment, I wish you my dear only those kinds of disappointments in life (-: And the way you turned it into thin slices of toasts and served it with hummus – yummy !
Michal
thanks Michal. if life was really about disappointments that could be turned into bite size toasts slathered with hummus, i’d take it too! 🙂
Exactly ! (-:
This right here is called being an all-around creative champ. Love how you salvaged it–these look fantastic. With a bonus life lesson.
P.S. I make plenty of garbage too. Just this weekend I forgot that frozen cranberries + warm milk would obviously and inevitably and as a curdled mess. Idiot o’clock.
oh i’m sorry about your cranberry + milk disappointment. i’m thinking that particular mistake was unsalvageable. 😦
Ahhh haha, too funny. I went through about a week there – maybe two – when everything I made was garbage. It was getting laughable, and was the product of my efforts to do more and more original recipe development for zee blog. Most devastating was a burnt batch of pistachio nougat that I slaved over for what felt like hours. Shelling two cups of pistachios is not friendly on the fingernails, and there wasn’t even any divine sweets to eat at the end of it all…
re: two hours of shelling pistachio & for naught – DEVASTATING. i feel you. so hard. and those nuts are cheap either! that’s when you just pour yourself a glass of wine, order take out and avoid the kitchen for awhile.
Seriously eh? It was shameful dumping a huge square of parchment-cemented nougat in the garbage. What a sin.
Tomorrow I’m going to test my luck by making macarons on Friday the 13th. Wish me well….
Thanks SO much for sharing this, Lan. Is there anything more pit-in-your-stomach depressing than food failures? Not only is it a waste of time and effort (both of which may be in short supply if the work week has been hectic) but more importantly, it’s a waste of food — the ultimate tragedy. Love that you were able to make your challah into something tasty (twice!) That’s creative genius.
(Hm, not sure if this is going through twice — sorry if it did!) LOVE this. Is there anything more pit-in-your-stomach depressing than a food failure? Not only is it a waste of time and effort (which may be in short supply if it’s a hectic work week) but, most tragically, a waste of food. It’s such heartache dumping inedible baked goods in the trash, I swear…. I love that you were able to make something tasty (twice!) out of food you weren’t happy with. That’s creative genius.