One of my secret passions is cooking shows. Watching them. Unfortunately, I am rarely ever able to replicate what I learn. To my chagrin, I am a terrible cook– but something of an expert at putting out small kitchen fires. To date, I have safely passed four major holidays (knock on wood) that I have not set something ablaze. One ‘event’, as my kids call them, was on New Year’s Eve. Did you know that steaks left on the broiler too long can ignite? Like– actually on fire? After that, we started a new family tradition of ordering Chinese food to ensure the safe welcome of a new year. Let’s just say I have an intimate knowledge of hand-held fire extinguishers. Another beloved tradition: before all family dinners, my adoring husband typically sets out antacid tablets by each place setting. I’ve never seen THAT on Top Chef.

I am the person in your office who has to sneak their baked goods into the kitchen. Because if anyone knew those cookies were mine, they would think twice before eating them. The rare times I heard rave reviews about something I baked– okay it was only that once– was when I overheard co-workers talking about my banana bread. (Confession– I make a killer banana bread. In the good way. Like you probably won’t be poisoned by it.) Co-workers were using process of elimination to guess who’d left the ‘delicious’ – I kid you not– banana bread in the kitchen. And the phrase “there’s no way it could be her” was definitely uttered when my name came up. It has been suggested by too many people to count that I could easily be a contestant on Worst Cooks in America. To them I say, bite me. In an amuse bouche sort of way. See– I learned that fancy term from a cooking show.

So, along with whatever random thoughts I post here, will be a series of my cooking disasters. Sadly, they are plentiful and ongoing. When the result is not completely scorched, I will try to post pictures of the results.

I am a firm believer in destiny.

At seven years old, I was already a book addict. A junkie. A thrice weekly visitor to our town library in the summer. I would mow down a book the way some people attack a pizza.

It was destiny that I would end up loving writing books as much as I loved reading them. It was also destiny I would become the haphazard cook I still am today. Food was something that required too much effort. While I always appreciated that effort, it wasn’t something I desired to spend a lot of time on. Fate struck on both fronts on a cold, November day the year I turned seven.

I was walking home from school– note to younger generation: kids used to do this. In my town if you lived under a mile from school, you were a ‘walker’. My home, at 9/10 of a mile, was deemed too close to ride the bus. In second grade, riding the bus was about the coolest thing I could imagine. Destiny– and the expense-conscious school committee– had already determined my fate before I ever hit McDougal Elementary. Already uncool at the age of seven. Sigh.

So, I’m walking home from school after a rainstorm, making sure to stomp through every puddle along the way. At the half mile point, I glanced down and discovered a book, submerged in a mud puddle.

My breath hitched in my throat. As I stooped to pick it up, I prayed it would be a ‘girl’ book. My introduction to Laura Ingalls Wilder was the sopping wet, dripping with mud treasure Little House in the Big Woods. No more dawdling. I rushed home with my saturated find. The cover was already beginning to dissolve. Terrified I wouldn’t be able to read the words, I spent the next hour blotting it dry before setting it on the kitchen radiator to dry out.

Each day after school I would rush home to see if it was finally dry enough to read. And each day, the rapidly expanding book would crinkle on the dry pages, but threaten to fall apart on the wet ones. Curses! After four days, I was going crazy. On my way into the kitchen one morning, I stopped to check the book again. I was supposed to be making toast.

On school days, my mother fought the epic battle to get my brothers out of bed. Consequently, I was allowed to make toast before school. I’d already failed the milk and cereal test (I’d dropped the gallon jug, spewing milk over the kitchen floor). I was seven! It was wicked heavy. To avoid mopping up spilled milk, Mom had taken a calculated risk– her reasoning probably along the lines of ‘how can she possibly eff up the toast’?

Okay, disclaimer here– I’d had some early success with toast. But on that morning . . . with Little House finally dry enough to read . . . at least the first chapter . . . I too, took a calculated risk. How much can I read while my toast is cooking? Before my mother would discover me dawdling and take Laura away.

It turns out the answer was twenty minutes. Because that morning, the toast got stuck. And started burning. And apparently, smoke began filling the house. And the smoke detector went off. When my mother ran to the kitchen to see what the hell was going on, she discovered me, head in my book at the kitchen table. Clueless to the smoke pouring from the toaster. Unalarmed by flames licking at the incinerated remnants of my cinnamon raisin toast. Oblivious to the blaring smoke alarm.

That morning two awesome things happened. I got to eat cold Poptarts on my walk to school. And I finally met Laura Ingalls. And she was way more important than toast. Destiny.

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.