The Taste of Trying: Cookies, Pie, and Quiet Heroism
The kitchen has always been a stage for family adventures—sometimes starring flour explosions and recipe rebellions. Recently, my twelve-year-old granddaughter Mar decided to bake chocolate chip cookies without a full recipe or all the ingredients. What followed was less “MasterChef” and more “Master of Disaster”—a performance that, as it turns out, I’ve seen before… from a whole generation earlier (starring me).
A Cookie Crisis and a Brave Little Baker
Recently, my youngest daughter shared a story about my granddaughter, Mar.
Mar loves to bake. Whenever she’s with me, she’s always asking to bake or cook something—anything. I know she does the same with her other grandmother. And since my oldest daughter is the baker in the family and Mar spends a lot of time with her, I’m sure they have plenty of quality kitchen time together, as well.
Mar, mixing dough. / Photo by Whaldo Digital Content
One day, Mar asked her mom if she could bake chocolate chip cookies to share with her friends at school. My daughter told her they didn’t have all the ingredients.
Now, Mar is twelve—going on twenty-five—and in the seventh grade. If you’ve spent even a little time with kids that age, you can guess what happened next.
You’re right: the arguing began.
Mar was adamant that she could make the best chocolate chip cookies with whatever ingredients they had. Her mom told her she could not. The stubbornness and emotions boiled over. Finally, after enough back and forth, my daughter said, “FINE! Go for it, kid.”
Mar started gathering what she thought would work:
Chocolate chips – check
All-purpose flour – check
Granulated sugar – check
Butter – missing
Eggs – only one
Baking soda – nope
Vanilla – nope
Brown sugar – nope
Salt – never crossed her mind
Substitute for all missing ingredients: Olive oil – check
What Happens When You Bake Without a Recipe
My daughter sat back and watched Mar mix it all together, splash out “cookies” onto the baking sheets, and pop them in the oven. When the timer went off, she opened the oven door to find chaos: a melted mess on the baking sheets, the oven racks, and the bottom of the oven.
Mar burst into tears. She knows what cookies look like—and this wasn’t it.
Her mom and dad hugged her. Gently, they told her they were proud of her for trying. That failure is part of the process. That even greatness requires a few flops. They admired her for taking initiative and seeing it through to the end.
A Meltdown in the Oven, a Lesson in Courage
Once the “cookies” cooled, Mar scraped the gooey, chocolate-laced mess into resealable plastic bags. She offered her mom a taste, and because my daughter is a superhero, she took a bite.
It earned a strained smile and a “mmmmmm.” My daughter told Mar the flavor was actually good, but the texture was, well, off. She explained how missing ingredients can make a big difference in baking.
Mar didn’t mind. Her confidence returned, and she was excited to take her creation to school the next day.
Her mom told her she still had to clean the kitchen. “You make a mess, you clean the mess.”
Mar took the mush to her friends, and according to her, they loved it.
They’re twelve. If there’s chocolate involved, they’ll eat it.
My Own Baking Misadventure, 1980s Edition
As I listened to this story, a memory bubbled up from long ago.
When I was twelve, I was a latchkey kid—like most of us Gen Xers. Being home alone or at a friend’s house without adult supervision wasn’t unusual. One day, I was at my friend Kitty’s house, just the two of us. For some reason, we decided to bake something.
We were responsible kids, so Kitty called her mom at work and asked for permission. Her mom said yes. (Again, Gen Xers.)
We browsed through Kitty’s mom’s many recipe books and settled on pumpkin pie. It must have been just after Halloween, because Kitty had a pumpkin. Real pumpkin pie—how hard could it be?
The Pumpkin Pie That Was Mostly Guts and Love
We gathered the ingredients, though a few were missing. Kitty assured me that her mom often substituted things. We’d be fine.
My mom wasn’t a baker. She made cookies once a year, maybe. So I wasn’t a baker either. But I did love to cook. How different could baking be?
We made the crust with flour and water and popped it into the oven. For the filling, we cut open the pumpkin, scooped out the guts (removing most of the seeds), and dumped it into a pot with sugar and cinnamon. It wasn’t quite pie consistency. Then we remembered the blender.
A few whirls later, we had a stringy but smoother mixture. We poured it into the half-baked crust and set it in the oven.
It smelled… like something. When the timer went off, we proudly pulled our creation out to cool and got to cleaning up our glorious mess. I’m sure we did a great job with that, although I wasn’t there when Kitty’s mom got home.
When the pie was finally cool, we each tried a bite. Kitty said it was good. I didn’t like pumpkin pie, so I just nodded and agreed. She decided her family should keep the pie since it was made with her family’s groceries, but I could take a slice home for my dad—he loved pumpkin pie.
The Day My Dad Became a Hero
I was so excited to show him what a brilliant baker I was. I handed it to him proudly. “You baked this for me?” he asked with a huge smile.
I nodded. My mom handed him a fork, smiling tightly.
He looked right at me and took a bite. He smiled, nodded as if his taste buds were dancing, and said it was the best pumpkin pie he’d ever had. He even offered my mom a bite.
“I don’t like sweets, John. You know that. But thank you,” she said.
He shrugged and tucked in. I stood there beaming while he ate the whole slice. He told me how proud he was. He even asked for the recipe.
I giddily told him every step. He kept smiling and nodding, as if I were a culinary genius.
What a smart little girl he had.
Years later, I learned he told that story often. He loved that pie—because of what it meant—not because of how it tasted. I’ll never know how awful it really was. The thought of eating raw pumpkin guts makes me shudder.
But he did it—for me. He was my hero.
From Cookie Dough to Confidence: Why We Let Them Try
When I heard about Mar’s cookies, I thought of that pie. How much it meant to me. And how much the cookies probably meant to her. How much parents—and grandparents—endure to help their kids stretch their wings, even when it means tasting disaster.
One day, Mar will realize what a gift she was given that day. What a hero her mom was for letting her try, fail, and try again.
Superheroes, Aprons, and Other Family Truths
I hope to hear many more stories like these as my granddaughters grow—filled with flour-covered adventures, kitchen messes, and the sweet sting of trying something new.
I’ll be sure to share my own stories with them too—the ones where things didn’t turn out quite as planned, where mistakes were made, but where every misstep came with a lesson worth learning.
Because that’s what family is: a tapestry woven from moments of courage and imperfection, from burnt edges and laughter, from gentle hands that help us clean up and kind words that remind us to keep going.
At the heart of it all is this:
Superheroes don’t always wear capes.
Sometimes, all it takes is a strong stomach—
and the right words spoken at just the right moment.
– J.S. Whaldo
