Today, and yesterday evening, I spent a lot of time critiquing the breads I had made in class. I was surprised to find that I wasn’t much impressed. This will sound conceited, and it is partially meant to, but my baguettes, be they traditional or not, are infinitely better. The baguettes that we made, and the vast majority of the ones I’ve had from various Parisian bakeries, are very dry and overcooked. My breads are always very moist on the inside, yet they still have a crispy crust. It was just kind of saddening. Everything else was alright, though. The bread with tomatoes, scallions, and garlic was very nice.

I didn’t actually do anything today that was noteworthy. I cleaned up and read my book. Oh, I made a potato gratin with things that I found in my refrigerator and cabinets, and may I say, it was heavenly. I felt like I was in some kind of Food Network Challenge, which was amusing as I didn’t have a recipe.

I had to slice the potatoes by hand and then layer them with cheese. The only cheese I had was parmesan cubes and stringed cheese, so I painstakingly grated them with my Pampered Chef cheese grater. It is no easy thing to grate a very soft piece of stringed cheese, mind you. I mixed the cheeses with frozen chunks of garlic, salt, pepper, and Cavender’s spice. That spice is miraculous. It can make anything taste better, well, almost anything. I layered it all up, then realized I had no cream, because it scares me here. So, I boiled some water, added a square of chicken bouillon and poured it over the potatoes and let it bake for an hour. When I pulled it out, it was perfection. I was very proud of myself.

I watched Little Britain for awhile. I don’t love that show, but I like it a lot. Then my DVD player kind of went crazy, the colors would get really bright and then dim, then the TV would read that it had no signal. I knew it wasn’t the TV itself because when I switched channels, it still looked perfect, so it had to be the DVD player. I was afraid that I had managed to break it in some way, even though I know that I hadn’t. So, I looked at the cables and discovered that they were all very loose. It is as if the television can’t grip the cable, so it keeps wiggling out, and makes the picture bad.

I read some more and went to bed.