I’m a big fan of Apartment Therapy’s food blog, The Kitchn; they post frequently about a wide range of subjects and I’ve found quite a few recipes there that have gone into regular rotation in our home. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them.

The post linked to Gourmet’s Cumin-Apple Crisps and a bright idea was born as I realized: “Hey, I love apples and I’m totally into cumin!” Unfortunately, I love apples so much, I didn’t have any in the house. I decided to use a bosc pear instead, which might’ve led to my latest kitchen disaster (though I suspect the unholy union of cumin and sugar contributed).

Out came the mandoline — my favorite kitchen toy — and I sliced one of the pears, snatching a few thin slivers for myself along the way. I sifted the cumin and sugar together, sampling a tiny bit before sprinkling it over the crisps; it was horrible, but I hoped some wondrous alchemy would take place in the oven and continued with the recipe.

Ninety minutes later I realized just how misplaced my optimism was, as my tongue turned inside-out to get away from the taste of the chips.

Now, it’s (probably) entirely my fault for substituting pears for apples, but the sugar and cumin just did not marry well on that platform. Maybe next time I’ll try The Kitchn’s suggestion and use cinnamon instead of cumin.

It’s a shame these were such a huge disappointment. They were so pretty:

After the success of the grilled salmon with blueberry salsa, I decided to try my hand at a similar combination over the weekend — grilled shrimp with peach salsa. (The original plan was for pork and peaches, but we had dim sum Saturday, which pretty much topped off our pork tanks for the week.) And “meh” doesn’t even come close to describing it. I’m practically dozing off just writing about it now.

It was a good idea in theory — ripe peaches with brandy, cilantro, red onion, cumin, and jalapeno. What could go wrong? I blame the peaches, which were ripe and smelling quite peachy, but tasted like not much of anything, to be honest. I tried doctoring them with pineapple juice and a touch of brown sugar, but to no avail. The best parts of the salsa were the red onion and jalapeno, which do not a complete salsa make.

So it’s back to the drawing board. I’ll try the peaches at the market again this weekend to see if they’re better this time around, and if the weather cooperates, I’ll grill them, too. But perfecting this one’s going to take some work, I can tell…