In my early teens I began my unimpressive culinary
explorations with desserts. Mom encouraged me to try a few easy dinners (in the
same spirit in which she encouraged me to drive: so she could do less of it). I
made a passable Spanish rice. But I excelled at cookies, no bake Rice Crispy
bars and brownies (cook what you love!). The only available cookbook was a
1960’s edition of Joy of Cooking.
If you are familiar with this grimoire you know that it
seduces you with an apparently brief recipe which on closer examination is
found to be a compendium of imbedded sub recipes. Daunting on a good day.
For some reason, lost to time and my eroding memory, I
decided to bake a pie one day. To my knowledge, my mom had never baked a pie,
but that did not register as boding ill for such an endeavor. I scoured J of C
for a pie recipe for which all ingredients were on hand. Bingo: Lemon Chiffon!
So, carefully following the imbedded recipes, I embarked.
Before Mom got home from her unpaid “job” spent knitting and talking at a
downtown knit shop, I had a finished pie of which I was quite proud.
When mom got home she goggled at the pie, and asked where
THAT came from. I told her I had baked it!
She said (and I recall THIS indelibly) “but those are hard”! In complete
ignorance I replied “they are?”
That was my first experience of having success at something
when I relied on instincts and uniformed optimism. In many subsequent first-time
endeavors this was repeated: what I have not over-thunk goes better than post
thunk. This was also my last pie. In the pithy words of my Dad: “I have done
that twice now - the first time and the last time”. I retired from pie baking with
an unblemished record of success.