I should have known better than to start drinking coffee.

I am not a chef. My culinary education is haphazard, divided amongst learning from family and friends of varying skill levels, an occasional formal class, reading recipes, and plain old experimentation. Most times things tend to work out within an acceptable variance from expectations.

Saturday was not one of those days.

A pile of dishes in the sink. Not one, not two, but three last-minute runs to the store for supplies or store-bought replacements for what I had hoped to be homemade recipe components. An egg splattering on the floor. Throwing away more food in one day than I had done in an entire year at this apartment.

It all started with a cake.