lack of an audience

last weekend i made pierre hermé's french lemon cream tart again.
the cream begins with rubbing your fingers in the sugar with the zest to get it all moist and aromatic. then mix with the eggs and lemon juice, cooking in a double boiler. this time i followed the instructions completely for the cream, including using a thermometer to cook the cream. (the thermometer is expensive.) after the tedious process of straining the cream to remove the zest and curdled egg bits, comes the blending with a hell lot of butter. done in a food processor, the butter emulsifies and lightens the cream to a pale yellow. then, the cream is packed away to chill overnight.
i'm getting better with dorie's tart dough. it still sticks a little to the foil during blind baking, but i'm less flustered when i patch it up now. it doesn't matter that the unfilled shell is hideous, because the cream will go in, and everything will be perfect.
i like filling the tart with the cream. the cream is so... seductively creamy. it flops out of the jar, and piles onto the tart shell without flowing all over, just spreading slowly, thick and steady.
so many people say it's too sour, but i think it's the wrong word. it's like saying a mango is sweet; a honeydew is sweet; a watermelon is sweet: yes, they are all sweet, but they taste differently sweet. anyhow, i think the lemon cream is puckery-sour. and i like it. it's refreshing.

you know that feeling - when you stare out of a train window blankly at the outside, and it goes underground, and you realise you're looking at your own reflection in the glass, against the dark tunnel zooming past in horizontal streaks?

and that feeling - your earphones are very loud, but the noise around you on the road, the cars, the train, the people, it keeps drowning out your music?

it's time to think of playing puzzle fighter.