Celebrating Imperfect Macarons

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even good-looking. I had given up on it. I wasn’t even going to put a filling in it. They were cracked and all different shapes and sizes, some rising more than others — imperfect.

But I felt the need to give it the same attention as I would to any perfection. Any perfection that had come out just as I had wanted it to: beautifully picture-perfect and delicious.

They deserved it. They were worthy of it.

So I filled up my piping bag with leftover meyer lemon curd from another recipe and gave each pair of macarons a dollop. I sandwiched them together and brought them to a place with ample light. Placing them on a clean plate, I arranged them, some macaron sides sliding off, leaving exposed curd. I took out my camera and gave them a proper photoshoot.

I can’t tell you why exactly this struck me at this exact moment or why it mattered so much to me. Maybe I was just going delusional. But I needed to do this. To recognize this imperfection, this failure. To go so far as to give it its own photoshoot — to celebrate it.

Curiously, this batch of failed macarons made me think back to my past few weeks…