A Parfait Solution: What to Do When Things Fall Apart
Cooking up a Storm (and finding the story when things crumble)
You might not know I’m was recipe tester for The Washington Post back before Covid shut it down. So yes, cooking is something I enjoy and do a lot. So I was in the kitchen making goodies to take to my mother-in-law.
It was my grandmother-in-law’s birthday and I was cooking up some celebratory treats.
The guacamole? No trouble. It’s a staple, always welcome.
I was also due to make a Victoria's sandwich cake. There’s something satisfying and comforting about this simple, unassuming classic. I've made it a million times. The scent blast as I pulled it from the oven was warm and nostalgic — a direct line back to childhood treats.
But when I took it out the tin, it was crumby.
I'm not sure what went. Delia's recipe is always reliable so it must have been me, though I’ll never know what.
Changing the Ending
I stared at the fractures in the cake. Should I make another one? No — no time. And what if the new one failed too? Better to work with what I had.
I poked at the cake. It looked back at me, part ashamed, part accusatory and part shrug. We became a team.
I made parfait.
Finding Flexibility
It’s possible I watch too many cooking competitions but I knew the move: when the cake tastes good but won’t behave, that’s the solution.
The cake wasn’t keen and needed convincincing. But I promised to be gentle.
I layered the crumbled cake into glasses. Then a swirl of yogurt mixed with fig butter. A handful of raspberries. More yogurt. A sprinkle of crushed almonds on top.
It was lovely. A little reinvention. A little trust. A little letting go of what I thought it should be.
Evolution.
The cake didn’t complain. It settled into its new form: balanced and whole in its own way. And those of us spooning from our ball jars of delight? We didn’t complain either.
Because here’s the thing: when life crumbles around you, it’s hard to take the next step. But sometimes, that crumble is just the beginning of something else.
In my novel, the protagonist faces a similar kind of unraveling:
her guilt over missing her mother’s final moments
the discovery of secrets that shake everything she thought she knew
a sense of self undone by loss, memory, and revelation
How do you keep going when your foundation cracks?
That question threads through every chapter.
She can’t go back and remake what broke — but she can reimagine what’s possible.
She learns to layer the truth into something new.
And if she’s lucky — as we all hope to be — what emerges is still sweet, still nourishing and maybe even better.