It’s part of my personality to take failure hard, so I am happy to say that I’m mostly free of that when it comes to failures in the kitchen. That’s assisted by the fact that most of the failures end up not only edible but, you know, pretty decent. The homemade pasta’s a little too dente? It’s still good! The gnocchi alla Romana that turned out like cheesy mush? I don’t hold anything against cheesy mush!!

But when there’s guests coming, I obsess a little. I have a really hard time with the very-good-idea-of-a-rule that you should make those dishes for guests that are tried and true, that are good and get better every time you make them, dishes you could make half asleep. Whenever I have the chance to cook for a group, that’s when I want to make exactly the opposite: what I’ve never made, have no idea how to make, are way beyond my comfort zone, dishes that will probably fall flat, and inevitably involve me approaching my fish and poultry person asking for something that nobody’s bought for two years. But anyway, this way I get to practice them.

In preparation for a dinner in a couple weeks, to my credit, I did come up with a seemingly simple idea for dessert: a bay leaf panna cotta with kumquats. (The dish belongs to Incanto, I’m just trying to rent it.) I’ve been really happy with desserts of the herbaceous or floral families lately, and think it will be a fairly light and different ending to the menu. But there’s a catch, and that is (guilty!) I don’t really know how to infuse cream with herbs. Last summer I tried at least three times to replicate the basil zabaglione we had with fresh strawberries at Delfina. Mariquita farms kept us in strawberries and basil, and I kept producing adequate-tasting but not-very-basil-ly zabagliones.

Time for a test run. I put together the most basic recipe for a panna cotta I could assemble from the cookbooks. I placed 2 ¼ tsp. gelatin in a small bowl and covered it with 1/8 c. cold water, and set the bowl aside.

Then, in a saucepan, I brought 1 ½ c. heavy cream, 3/8 c. sugar, 2 sections of zest from Mariquita Meyer Lemons, and bay leaves, to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Here’s the first crisis—how many bay leaves? Dried bay leaves, will they cut it?, or should I use finely ground bay leaf? Once the mixture had been brought to a simmer, I removed the pan from the heat and let it sit. But how long would it take? How long did it need to steep? I gave it half an hour, whisked in the gelatin and whisked vigorously to incorporate the gelatin smoothly. I removed the herb and zest, stirred in 2 ½ c. buttermilk, and strained the whole mixture through a sieve, filled small ramekins, and chilled them to set.

And the result? Good panna cotta! It was very smooth, creamy, delicious. It jiggled on the plate when I walked it from the refrigerator to the table just the way I wanted it to jiggle. But it was, alas, just, you know, not a bay leaf panna cotta. The buttermilk shone, but it did not have even the subtle herbaceous notes I was going for. Clearly there is some technique that I don’t have done—which is why I turn to you, six readers, to wonder if you have any feedback or suggestions?