Sometimes, you're just not feeling it

In the kitchen, at least. Despite your best efforts and best-laid plans, sometimes stuff doesn't come out. It happens, and that's when you end up saying things to yourself like "Why isn't that melting?" and "That can't be right" and "There's pureed pumpkin all over my DS".
In such cases, one ends up with a kitchen full of dirty pots and disheveled dishes, with only the faintest hope that some small aspect of the recipe will emerge as salvageable. If one feels sanguine about it, one writes it ...