The fondant icing for the cake spawned a weekend’s worth of drama. From the minute he heard I was hoping to make the fondant he discouraged it.
Here’s a little snippet of the soundtrack of my weekend.
“You are setting yourself up to fail. Why are you trying to do this? Do you even know if you like fondant? What’s in it? Glycerin! You will blow the house up! This is just like when the stained glass. Dangerous chemicals all over the house! They’ll find us dead!”
(Yes, I know food-based glycerin isn’t a dangerous chemical. Eventually Gary found out, but not before a leader at my work commented he couldn’t even taste the nitroglycerin in the icing.)
This went ON all weekend.
I kept trying to figure out why he was so discouraging. He’s usually a bit discouraging when I try new things. It must be his way of saying “I don’t want to see you frustrated and failing.” But as I say, this was unrelenting.
Finally, I took the cake to work and we dropped the subject. Tuesday he was making chicken in a pan, which stuck. When I reminded him it would all come up when he deglazed it, he snapped:
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO. AND STOP USING FANCY WORDS LIKE DEGLAZE. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.”
And, of course, that’s what he had against the fondant. We were cooking equals for a while, then he became much more confident than I am, then a better chef, and then I had to one-up him with the damn fondant.
I’ll have to make sure to tell him I pronouced it wrong for an entire weekend, plus half a day at work until Anne the Baker corrected me. “Fawn-DAWNT” might sound fancier but it’s plain old “FON-Dint.”That’ll make him feel superior again.