Signs of fall: 

Leaves changing color, the air grows crisper, nights grow shorter and I can finally enjoy a pumpkin spice latte. Or five. I can attempt baking pumpkin cookies because even scorched, they still taste damn good. Pumpkin bread usually goes the other way. Mine typically comes out mushy, but in my mind, still spicy and delicious. Pumpkin pancakes . . .  okay, let’s not get crazy. I’ve seen pictures of them, and they look awesome.  

But over the past few years, we’ve gone pumpkin crazy. Yesterday at the grocery store, I saw pumpkin candles. Pumpkin bathroom spray? Pumpkin air freshener. Things that have no business being pumpkin.

My beloved orange beauty has become the easy girl in high school. I long for the days when pumpkins were more– selective. Instead of doing the football team, she played hard to get. She was elusive . . . and celebrated. She was a rare, beautiful thing– the bald eagle of the root vegetable world. Admired. Envied. Proud and confident of her lush, curvaceous beauty. Please dear pumpkin . . . I want you to return to your roots. And vines. Resist the temptation to commercialize your value. Hold out for love. Hold out for fall. I want the pumpkin I fell in love with as a child. And maybe another cookie or two. 

In some families, parents pay kids for chores.

Good grades. Athletic ability. Kindness to a particularly annoying sibling. Or for a job well done. Sometimes, it’s a flat out bribe. “Please take the dead mouse out to the trash,” shrieked while perched on top of a chair and hubs was away on business. For the record – the price escalated to thirty bucks before I had any takers that night. 

Confident parents can readily admit the effectiveness of bribery in an overall child-rearing plan. In our house, we instituted a policy of remuneration (and antacid tablets) for the willingness to try foods that might end up being digestively unpleasant. Inadvertently unpleasant. It’s not as though I set out to torture them. Except that one time involving quinoa.  

Hence, the rule of five bucks for five bites. My girls could refuse the money. And the dinner. Peanut butter was readily available– purchased by the case. But accepting the challenge– the culinary odyssey of the evening –– meant going the distance. Five bites. No less. Healthy bites, not nibbles. No show of fear when the meatloaf oozed. No panicking when the appetizer round involved a fire extinguisher. Power through was our motto. Wimps need not apply.  

My intentions: create an edible dish. But edible is such a subjective term. After two decades doling out fivers equal to at least a year of in-state tuition, my girls survived their childhood. Through a genetic miracle or the serious possibility they were switched at birth, they can actually cook now as adults!

In hindsight, I can safely confirm that little things matter. Details– like measuring. That danger lurks in the false sense of bravado one feels when the recipe is ‘easy’. A dash of spice that probably shouldn’t be there. Me thinking– what if it turns out GREAT? After two decades, I’m here to confirm– it won’t. In the meantime, a little bribery never killed anyone. At least not at our house.   

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.