Me Vs. The Stove: the Sequel

It started out like any other Wednesday, Ms. H came, we made a shopping list, and a list of tasks. I was very excited to make cinnamon rolls for the CLO(my office, more on what I do later) bake sale, while Hubs was excited to make pork-stuffed squid from our new cookbook. I asked Ms. H to bake me some cookies also, so naturally I expected our apartment to smell delicious when we got home....

The newly bought roses smelled delicious.....

However the cookies did not smell so good

Apparently, our oven timer is broken and therefore the cookies were burnt. 

No worries, I thought: I will just cook some brownies later....

Dinner a la Ms. H: bamboo shoots & pork, dill potato salad and sweet & sour pork

Dessert: the fruit on the right is not cupcakes, as I hoped; 

these are mangosteens: yummy little pockets of sweetness paired with passionfruit. 

FYI: This is classic Vietnamese dessert, not burnt cookies

After a nice dinner with Hubs, I began to make my Grandma E's cinnamon rolls. These are epic. Every time I have made them I get rave reviews and they are coveted by everyone on my dad's side of the family. I really love making them. I was so happy to find yeast and flour to use. 

"Haha!" I thought, "I can find everything I need in Ha Noi! Life is so good!"

As the recipe calls for; I let the dough rise, then the rolls rise, preheated the oven and set my phone timer for twenty minutes....

Before

Eleven minutes in, I smelled something burning. I checked on my oven and....

--BOOM--

Burnt cinnamon rolls! 

FAIL. 

My first burnt anything ever. 

I was devastated.

For all of my baking friends out there, I know you can relate.

 I know it seems trite, but baking cinnamon rolls makes me really happy and I had no flour left to make more. I overreacted a little bit, but as we are just over a month into post, I think I can still pull the culture-shock-hypersensitivity card.

Luckily I had baked two reserves for myself and Hubs

This morning I woke up at 6am to bake brownies to replace the cinnamon rolls....

Let's put it this way:

Nic: ZERO

Stove: Two

No one needs a picture of burnt brownies. 

On a positive note, the bake sale was a huge success and I am very lucky to be surrounded with so many great bakers! 

This may all sound trivial to you, but I am sure there is someone out there who can relate.

Tonight the Hubs took his first crack at Vietnamese cooking. 

He decided to make pork stuffed squid; a dish we tried in Hoi An this weekend:

He totally won.

Not that there was a competition, but the dish was really flavorful and delish!

It may not be the prettiest, but it sure tasted good!

As a yogi, I do my best to find the lesson in all things. This lesson taught me to let go of expectations. I work on this constantly, but I notice that I hold so tightly to expecting to have everything work out the best that I want it to, only to learn that it always works out the way that it needs to. 

On a positive note, as I was tossing out the brownies, 

I realized that just the top was burnt but the rest was salvageable. 

They were really good:) 

Lesson #2: 

When you let go of attachment, you realize you have had everything you need all along.

I am glad I burnt the baked goods. 

I needed to be reminded of a thing or two. 

It's amazing what you can learn from such simple "silly" moments.