40somethingmag - Kat Marie - It-s A Great Fucki... Review

It’s a great idea… until it isn’t. By: Kat Marie, for 40SomethingMag

By Friday, the kitchen was 94 degrees. The pilot light on the vintage oven had a personal vendetta against me. I tried to make a test batch. The dough came out looking like a topographic map of the moon—burnt craters surrounded by raw, gluey dough. 40SomethingMag - Kat Marie - It-s a great fucki...

The Gelato & Gasoline party was scheduled for Saturday. Entertainment would be me, dramatically sliding focaccia onto wooden boards. Lifestyle cred would be infinite. It’s a great idea… until it isn’t

The moral of this lifestyle story isn’t “don’t try new things.” It’s that at 40-something, the entertainment is rarely the oven, the vacation, or the perfect party. The entertainment is watching your friends help you carry a 300-pound mistake back down three flights of stairs the next morning, laughing so hard that Vinny the oven guy gives you your money back just to make you stop. I tried to make a test batch

So here’s to great ideas. And here’s to the even greater mess they leave behind. At least we know exactly how much olive oil we deserve. (Spoiler: all of it.) Kat Marie is a 40-something freelance writer and recovering renovator living in Chicago. Her next great idea involves backyard chickens. Mark is building a fence.

Getting it up to my third-floor walk-up took two hours, a case of beer for the neighbor’s nephew, and the permanent loss of feeling in my left thumb.

The next morning, I announced to Mark, “I’m buying a vintage oven and throwing a Gelato & Gasoline party.”