Not Yet There

There are not always AMAZING SUCCESSES in the kitchen when it comes to my cooking. :-P But what I like is that I have the feeling that I am always learning at least. So I had this vision of what I would cook this weekend/evening - I wanted to try some pumpkin...and some spinach...and some scallops...all layered with different complementary flavors. And in general I got the flavors right - I am pretty sure about this. At least most of them. But the textures were off. I wanted crispier drier pumpkin. And the parma wrapped around the broiled scallops was WRONG. In general, a bit too mushy. Nice presentation, but something was a bit off - need to figure out how to optimize.

These were all MY recipes...so it stands to figure...that even if I have logged the 10,000 expert hours (in any discipline if you log 10,000 hours, you are generally considered an expert - at least according to Malcolm Gladwell, and it seems like a reasonable conclusion to me...), that I am an expert in following recipes, but perhaps not yet an expert in creating them...at least not a really EXPERT expert.

So, Emily my dear, this is not yet ready for your test kitchen, but I will be sure to alert you if I get it to that point.

We have: pumpkin and baby corn and leek saute, spinach and pinenuts with a squeeze of lemon and broiled scallops wrapped in parma ham...which I will NEVER EVER broil again. Parma was ruined, although scallops were edible.

Needless to say, no publishing of the recipe quite yet.