I love to cook. I love to eat. Grocery shopping is one of my favorite household “chores” and I think had I ended up in any other profession, it would have been something in the culinary arts.

“Chef Kasie” has a nice ring to it.

At home, I do all the cooking. After destroying one of my favorite skillets in an attempt to make a grilled cheese sandwich, my husband was banned from the kitchen. On the rare night I don’t feel like making dinner, I tell him it’s “his turn to cook” — which in our home is code for ordering a pizza.

Being the mom of two boys, I think it’s important that they learn how to cook too. I may prepare the meals but I hardly consider cooking to be solely “woman’s work,” it’s a life skill. Sam is still too young — he’s only 6 months old — but Ben is about to turn 4 so I’ve been putting him to work.

We started off with fun things, baking cookies and the occasional birthday cake. It’s his job to break the eggs and then to lick the batter off the wooden spoons. We push a chair up to the counter and he wears one of my aprons tied around his waist while he “helps” me measure flour and sneaks chocolate chips when he thinks I’m not looking.

Of all the pies and pastries we’ve produced, one dessert had never been prepared in my kitchen: a lemon meringue pie. From scratch. When my mother-in-law requested one over the holidays, saying it was my father-in-law’s favorite, I agreed. After all, how hard could it be?

All I know about lemon meringue pie is that I like it. I had no idea how to make it or the ingredients involved, besides the obvious lemons. So I pulled out my trusty 1950’s Good Housekeeping cookbook, made a grocery list and headed to the store.

When I got home, Ben was already in bed so I lacked my usual helper. Luckily another cooking partner of mine was more than willing to assist. You may be familiar with this particular blonde, her name is Chardonnay …

When I started seeing words like “double boiler” and “temper,” I knew I was in over my head and turned to Google for help. Remember, I said that I enjoy cooking — I never claimed to be any good at it.

There were a few hiccups: I didn’t own a zester, I forgot to pre-bake my pie shell and (for whatever reason) the butter was never added to the filling. I did manage to separate the eggs without too much of a mess and I whipped up those whites until stiff peaks formed like a boss.

I baked my creation until the meringue turned a pretty toasty-brown on the tips and deemed it a success.

The next morning I pulled my pie out of the fridge to head over for the family get together only to discover my meringue had shrunk. Instead of a glorious pile of deliciousness atop the filling, the was a little puddle of deflated eggs. My heart sank but without having enough time to try again, I had no choice but to bring my sad little pie.

“It’s OK if it doesn’t look good.” Those words have become a family joke ever since my mother-in-law spoke them when I told her I was going to bake my own wedding cake.

“It’s OK if it doesn’t look good,” she said when I presented my lemon meringue pie.

But at least it tasted good.

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Strickly Speaking

Kasie Strickland

Kasie Strickland is a staff writer for The Easley Progress, The Pickens Sentinel and Powdersville Post and can be reached at kstrickland@civitasmedia.com. Views expressed in this column are those of the writer only and do not represent the newspaper’s opinion.