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During my senior year of college I began dating a dapper young man with kind eyes who wore fedoras like someone from the 1920s. He had a calm, confident air about him. After only a few months, I could imagine spending the rest of my life with him — though of course, I didn’t say that.
We came from different backgrounds, and nowhere was this more apparent than in the foods we loved. For me, the perfect breakfast was and still is huevos rancheros, while for him, it’s a tall stack of golden pancakes with maple syrup. I loved to cook, but quickly realized that I didn’t know how to make most of the dishes he cherished.
That was a problem. Because I wanted this man to fall in love with me.
Facebook hadn’t been invented yet and the internet was in its infancy. So when he told me he loved apple cobbler, my only recourse was the public library. My Mexican grandmother sure didn’t know how to make cobbler. Nor did my mother. No one in my family made “gringo” food.
I was going to have to figure this out solo. So, I got to work.
The women in my dorm thought I’d lost it. A stack of cookbooks soon teetered in one corner of our communal kitchen as I bent over a notebook and recorded the results of my culinary experiments. I made so many cobblers that the hallway was constantly filled with the aroma of apple slices bubbling in their juices. I was like the woman who created the first Persian Love Cake, trying to find the ideal balance of textures and flavors.
Finally, I found it.
“This cobbler is amazing Christina, stop stalling! Just make it for him already,” my roommate cajoled one evening, licking her spoon.
She wasn’t wrong. I was dilly-dallying. But I wanted to get it right. This was his favorite dessert, and I’d convinced myself that if I made it just so he’d somehow realize I was “the one.”
My opportunity arrived soon enough. My boyfriend invited me over to study and since he lived on the first floor of a house, that meant he had a full-sized kitchen. It promised to be a chilly autumn evening too — the ideal weather for a cozy cobbler.
It was showtime.
He was excited when I announced that I planned to make a cobbler for us to enjoy while we studied. His enthusiasm made me nervous because it told me he was imagining something specific.
But I got to work, slicing apples, mixing cinnamon sugar, and making the fluffiest biscuit topping. I assembled my cobbler in a pie dish, then slid it into the oven. There was a market a few blocks away and he decided to walk there to grab a pint of vanilla ice cream.
I headed to his room and closed the door, making myself comfortable on a small couch in the corner before taking out one of my books. I struggled to concentrate though, my mind focused on the cobbler baking in the next room.
I wanted this to be perfect. I needed it to be perfect.
Then about halfway into the baking time, I smelled something. What was that?
I opened the door and a cloud of thick, white smoke billowed past me.
Oh. my. god.
I pulled the neck of my shirt up slightly to cover my nose and mouth, then plunged into the smoke.
I dashed to the oven, opening the door and immediately jumping back as crackling flames came shooting out at me. The heat hit me like a wave, making my skin prickle. I realized that juice from the cobbler had bubbled over the edges of the pie dish, pooling at the bottom of the oven and catching on fire.
Slamming the oven door shut, I stood there, eyes stinging. What should I do? I had no idea how to stop it, and I didn’t know how much time I had left before the fire burned out of control. This couldn’t be happening — not now!
Someone started pounding on the door that separated the first floor from the upstairs apartment. A man was shouting, and I could hear him fiddling with the lock. Finally, the door burst open and the landlord barged in, eyes blazing.
“What the hell is going on?!” he yelled, gesturing wildly with a phone in one hand. “I had to call 9-1-1!”
“No! It’ll be fine!” I cried, “It’s just my cobbler! The apples were too juicy!”
I opened the oven again and saw the flames dying down. Without stopping to think, I grabbed oven mitts and took the cobbler out, showing it to the landlord as if that would make everything ok. But it didn’t, because the oxygen from opening the oven kindled the flames anew.
“Are you crazy?!” he shouted, slamming the oven door shut again.
Quickly placing my cobbler on the table, we frantically began opening windows to let smoke escape. He opened the front door and in the distance, I could hear sirens from a fire truck growing closer. I ran onto the porch just as the engine arrived, bright lights flashing.
And it was at this moment – with his landlord screaming at me on one side, firemen rushing past me on the other, and smoke billowing around me like an apocalyptic halo – that my boyfriend walked up the block, ice cream in hand.
I started crying as he jogged up to me, putting his hand on my shoulder and asking what happened. And it all came spilling out while his landlord stood there, arms crossed, glaring at me.
One of the firemen stepped onto the porch just as I finished blubbering. “I think you’re all set here,” he said. “We were able to contain the fire and it’s out now, though you probably need a new oven.” He gave me a sympathetic look as he and his teammates headed back to their truck.
I glanced inside to confirm what the fireman had said. Sure enough, there were black scorch marks around the stove and white foam was squeezing through the cracks of the closed oven door.
My boyfriend gestured to the landlord, and they walked inside for a moment, talking in low voices. I heard him reassuring the landlord that he’d pay for the damage and my heart sank as the landlord stormed upstairs, slamming the door behind him.
I sat down on the porch steps, head in my hands. I’ve ruined it. Everything. My chance to impress him, maybe even my chance at love. How could he possibly want to date me now?
But then I heard a voice asking, “Ice cream?”
I turned to see my boyfriend standing in the doorway, a lopsided smile on his face. Through my tears, I noticed he was holding up the bag with a pint from the market.
“It’s too late,” I replied. “The cobbler burned.”
“Nah,” he reassured me. “I checked and it’s just a little toasty. Come on,” he tilted his head towards the kitchen, gesturing for me to come inside.
So I did. And actually the cobbler was still great, even if a little smoky. Between bites, he joked that I’d just invented a new dessert: “Smoked cobbler.”
Years later, my boyfriend — now husband — revealed that this messy moment was when he fell in love with me.
“What? Why?” I wondered, dumbfounded.
“Because I thought it was sweet how hard you tried to do something nice for me,” he recalled. “And, I realized you’d be a source of endless comic relief in my life.”
It’s been more than two decades now and over the years, we've faced plenty of mishaps, big and small. But I’ve since learned that love isn’t about getting everything right. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing up, trying your best, and laughing together when things don’t go as planned.
Even after all these years, I still make this cobbler — albeit without the smoky touch. And every time I do, I can’t help but think: Gosh, my husband really did know what he was getting into when he married me, didn’t he?
About This Recipe
With tender cinnamon-sugar apple slices and a homemade biscuit topping, this apple cobbler is a baking tradition in my family. Along with my apple crisp, we make it every year after apple picking. It’s also a favorite during the holidays.
Over the years I’ve shared this recipe with many people, and they all tell me it’s the best apple cobbler they’ve ever had. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. I recommend enjoying it warm with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.