Sauce Magazine contest entry

You can go to the contest here. They asked their readers to tell them about a time where they mastered a difficult baking challenge that they never thought they could. I rarely run into things that I think I can't master without proper time and resources, so my subject's a little lame. However, I think it's the best written entry:

The first few times I attempted to make meringues they tasted ok but I despaired of ever making them beautiful. The ones I had created were lopsided, inconsistent in size and despite the best of efforts and the lowest of temperatures still managed to brown in the oven. I stuck with them, however; whenever I had some extra egg whites would whip up a batch and practice my piping skills. Now the ones I make can be much prettier—although my favorite thing to do now is to deliberately misshape and stick candy eyes in them for Halloween monster meringues.