When I was 17, a friend set me up on a blind date with her cousin. He picked me up in a monstrous white truck with extra stereo speakers installed where padding should have been. The windows rattled. Deafening. He drove me to his parents’ house, had his mother make him a grilled cheese and tater tots (nothing for me), and ranted about how his ex-girlfriend had cheated on him and women couldn’t be trusted.

What does all this have to do with Dorie’s Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake?

It’s like a blind date. You want to like it.

What’s not to like about polenta, ricotta, sugar, honey, butter, and figs? Separately, delicious. In this particular combination, grainy and cloying.

Still, I wasn’t ready to give up on it. I tried adding Dorie’s suggested whipped cream sweetened with honey.

Didn’t help.

Sometimes bad cakes, like bad blind dates, require dumping. But one woman’s frog is another’s prince, so I give you the Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake recipe.

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My birthday was last Sunday, and my sister’s was on Friday, which means last weekend was a birthday extravaganza, filled with grilled steaks and twice-baked potatoes, brownie pie, baked brie, fruit salad spiked with fried goat cheese, Belgian waffles, a picnic in the park, and a wedge of chocolate cake so uncompromising I know it’s still sitting, like the Lincoln Memorial, in one of my arteries.

Such gluttony, mere days after “The Biggest Loser” finale! Beatings, beatings, beatings.

This morning, I was back to the breakfast of the penitent: high-fiber cereal, 1% milk, and shame. But then I remembered this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge, Bill’s Big Carrot Cake. And out came the butter, the sugar, and the cream cheese.

Oh, well. Everything in moderation. That’s why I turned Bill’s Big Carrot Cake into cupcakes. Portion-control and DENIAL.

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Yesterday, I could have run a marathon (or at least jogged to the mailbox) thanks to this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge: marshmallows. Marshmallows cut with cookie cutters. Marshmallows sliced into classic squares. Marshmallows melted into Rice Krispie Treats. Marshmallows bobbing in hot chocolate. My veins were coursing with sugar, corn syrup, and potato starch. I broke a sweat.

Am I some sort of marshmallow fiend? No. Those chewy, powdery little knobs that bookend my grocery’s baking section have never had much appeal.

But homemade marshmallows … the taste is similar, but the texture is so very different. When you stir them into hot chocolate, they don’t resist the spoon, all jet-puffed and stubborn. You can taste them in every sip.

And homemade marshmallows have style. Even though they stay soft, they can maintain the clean lines of a cookie cutter, so you can cut them into any shape–hearts, snowflakes, stars. I used a flying pig cookie cutter, but the pig was too big for the cup and unfortunately had to be … halved. There’s a reason I didn’t include that photo. Did you need the visual of a pig’s head (or tail) bobbing around in my mug of hot chocolate? I didn’t think so.

Obviously, I’m not old enough to handle so much sugar in the house. That’s why I’ve bagged the rest of the marshmallows. They’re on the way to my nephews.

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My sister’s birthday is this week. She’s threatening to stay in bed.

Oh, don’t feel sorry for her. She’s got looks, she’s got brains, she’s got talent. She’s hilarious. She has a big heart, a way with people, and very well-behaved hair. Woe is her.

What she lacks is perspective.

I mean, what are you before 30? A fetus with a driver’s license.

So, in preparation for my sister’s Triple X, here’s a bold, spicy, delightfully inappropriate recipe: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca (”pasta in the way a prostitute would make it”). No one really knows from whence this classic Italian dish got its name. I’ve read that maybe it’s because a.) the dish is spicy, b.) it was sold cheap to lure hungry men into brothels, or c.) it’s a quick-prep meal that the ladies could cook and eat between appointments.

Recipes, like people, are more interesting with a little history.

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The grass. It’s high.

It’s grown past “maybe they’re on vacation” to “maybe we could have the front yard declared a wildlife preserve.”

What brought us to this shameful state? Stomach flu. Sinus infections. And a push mower that spontaneously combusted after two rows. Two horizontal rows right in front of the house. It looks like we cut a path with a machete. Or tethered a baby goat to the front door.

But finally, after days of scratchy throats and sniffling, we woke up with the amazing ability to breathe through both nostrils, for which we are truly grateful. And we probably have Dorie’s Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart to thank. Benadryl didn’t work. Sudafed didn’t work. But juicing five lemons–that worked.

The tart, like our yard, has room for improvement. The crumbly, shortbread-cookie crust would be even better with ground macadamia nuts and maybe a little shredded coconut. And the lemon cream is so pungent, I wish I’d topped it with a little whipped cream. Because what this recipe needs is more dairy fat.

As for the lawn, we were feeling so good last night, we bought a new push mower. Right now, it’s all potential, but as soon as I get my sneakers on, the hobbits in the front yard better run for cover.

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March ended with unnecessary roughness. A miserably muddy soccer field. A single-point loss in overtime. A busted lip. Not mine, Jeff’s.

So much for going “out like a lamb.”

His bruises skipped blue and went directly to black and purple. So, we skipped the rest of the afternoon and went directly to evening. Closed the shades. Ordered dinner at 3:30 p.m. Wrapped up in a blanket on the couch and watched “John Adams.” Nothing like the bloody pox and a maritime amputation to put things in perspective. And then there was the chocolate.

The night before, we’d made Dorie Greenspan’s Gooey Chocolate Cakes. Six ramekins brimming with lethal amounts of bittersweet chocolate, butter, and sugar. And the texture… even though they looked cracked and dried out from the oven, one light tap on the surface, and your finger would sink into the chocolate quicksand.

A much better way to go than the bloody pox.

The next day’s cakes were just as moist as the first. We popped the ramekins into the microwave and topped the bounty of molten chocolate with a scoop each of Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch. You know, to cut the sweet. The perfect way to end a woolly month.

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