Tired. Found it hard to sleep after last night’s Downton Abbey debacle. Grief and shock will do that to you.

Speaking of which, I’ve decided to stop bemoaning my cooking disaster of a few days ago. It’s time to move on. I will allow my tear-streaked eyes to drift upwards and out, to the hopeful, ever-new, rose-fingered horizon of the culinary future. What I see there is… not encouraging. But I can change this. And I will. Because I plan to do something different this week. I intend to operate off of a foolproof cooking agenda. It will be composed entirely of meals from my personal “repertoire.” Meals I already know how to make. Meals I know for sure will succeed.

For I think it’s best, after the beating my gastronomic self-esteem took on Friday, that I build myself back up slowly. In baby steps, as it were. So before I get adventurous, I will get cozy. I will be a “winner.” I will break out my greatest hits!

There are exactly three of them.

But so what? This mini-respite from failure will, I hope, restore me to positive thinking. The small successes I achieve will incrementally boost my ailing ego, assuage my inner doubts, and supply me with me a firmer ground from which to launch my next assault. Along the way, my victories may both renew my sullied faith in the institution of cooking and refresh my mind for the certain travails coming down the nutritional pike.

Or that’s the plan, anyway.

So there’ll be vegetarian lasagna. There’ll be ginger-baked salmon. But first? There’ll be pasta pesto. Sure, Mike’ll be bummed, but not as bummed as he was facing down that hideous plate of slow-cooked misery I hit him with last week. MJ will be ecstatic–she could eat pesto for every meal and be completely content. And I? I will be healed. Restored. Soothed.

Until I think of Downton Abbey. Then the weeping will commence once more.