Is consistency possible?

The beloved Big Mac I scarf down in Times Square (with no guilt, I might add) will taste virtually the same as the  one I ate in Italy (try not to judge) a few years ago. Okay – sidebar on the Big Mac in Pisa – my gastronomic tour of Italy was suspended for one meal the afternoon we visited Pisa. Turns out restrooms in Pisa left much to be desired. As a trade-off for the use of a restroom more aligned to my personal comfort zone, I was forced to indulge in the deeply satisfying, though not at all authentic cuisine I could have otherwise discovered. The reason? A super secret lavatory password could only be found on a receipt. That one time I happily traded gastronomy for convenience. 

Back to the consistency question. Is replication possible? In my kitchen, the answer is an emphatic ‘no’. Sadly, the rare happy accidents that result in something delicious (approximate frequency = a Yeti sighting), are typically (okay– never) replicated. Take my scrambled eggs. I love to make eggs. But there are so many ways to go wrong. A splash too much milk. Not enough cheddar. Too much pepper. Too little salt. And that time I started yakking to my daughters’ friends while preparing said eggs. Completely unaware the pan had overheated. Before my beautiful, cheesy eggs ever hit the pan, they were destined to become the smoky, inedible mess I unknowingly served.

Luckily for the girls that day, I am a seasoned veteran of the Burning Meals Rodeo. I’ve been thrown from this horse before. I’d bought a coffee cake to go with my eggs. After one bite of smoldering eggs, the coffee cake was attacked with a ferocity I’d only seen on a National Geographic special about wolverines. Coffee cake and polite smiles. And those pained expressions I’ve grown accustomed to that say ‘we need to hit the drive thru once we leave this house’.

Something I am consistently good at in the kitchen? A backup plan. Which usually results in a Big Mac.  

I hate pies. Making them.

I love eating them. And when I say ‘making’, I mean it in the loosest sense. I unapologetically love refrigerated pie crusts. Let’s face it, of the fifty-seven steps required to make a pie, fifty-two of them are about the crust. Eliminate those steps, and I have fifty-two less things that can go wrong. There are still the apples to peel and cut and all those mysterious ingredients that have to make it under the glorious store-bought crust. I used to think those other ingredients were kinda optional. Boy, was I wrong. Forgetting one little thing . . . and all of a sudden, people are spitting bites into their napkins.

I once got in an argument over piecrusts with a woman at work. Seriously. She was a piecrust snob. One who raved over the wonders of her crust. It was legendary. Best ever. Winner of contests (yeah, right). She questioned my sanity  because I maintained that store bought crusts were flaky and delicious and more importantly– way easier. I might have eventually conceded to her argument. Let’s face it– if you’ve got the mad skills to not be intimidated by the daunting task of making crust, you’re probably a damn better cook than me. Again, remember that bar is set pretty low. But, still.

Coworker lost her argument. Because here’s what she said: She spends all this time on her award-winning, best-ever, legendary pie crust . . . and then she dumps a can (a CAN!) of gelatinous, fruity slop inside the crust. What??? Even I can’t cop to the can. Because no matter what– unless I’ve cut a thumb off (and I’m not sayin’ it won’t happen someday), but until it does . . . I can hack up the apples to go in my pie. Or buy the blueberries. I can slice peaches, people.   

And yeah, my knife skills are non-existent. But, once you slap the cover on a pie, who’s looking? Knife skills– another funny term I’ve learned from watching Top Chef. Despite being a Top Chef addict, a Tom Colicchio mega fan– I snicker every time I hear it. Isn’t the sole point of using a knife to cut something up? Does my carrot have to look pretty?

Pie to me means fall. Although I occasionally get the urge to take a stab at peach or blueberry pie in the summer, I usually manage to talk myself out of it. Or . . . my husband does. He tends to be right about some things. “It’s hot out, hon”. Or the “who runs the oven in the summer?” excuse. Or the classic “aren’t you too tired to bake” . . . Wait a minute- 

He’s even gone so far as to claim he doesn’t like pie. Unless we’re at a restaurant. Or his brother’s house. Or the convenience store . . . where he will actually buy the suspect, gelatinous, could-outlast-a-nuclear-winter cherry pie. The one you’d contemplate while you’re paying for gas . . . in lieu of the week-old hotdog spinning in the case.

So, when all of his excuses fail to deter me, and I get the simultaneous yearning to forget I suck at baking, we’ve typically arrived at the glorious season of fall. Sweater weather. Ripe pumpkins. Cold cider. Addictive apple cider donuts (seriously– what’s in them– crack?). Harvest colors. Falling leaves. Crisp nights. And burnt piecrusts. The essence of fall. 

Oven, here I come.