Cooking is, for me, primarily social. Not just in that egomanical ‘good host’ way where you get to unveil each dish with the turning step of a Matador working the cape — although there is that — but also in the way people connect over food and its rituals. I spent more of my youth in the kitchen than in any other room, and life at our home not only had flavor in every sense of the word but never lacked a lively table, whether two were seated or all seven. 

So you have people over. 

Cooking is also scientific, however, and science, in a godless universe, is often just how the universe messes with you. No argument or stirring music or slow-clap has ever changed a degree of temperature, or weakened the sharp molecular bonds of an acid. 

And if Cooking is a science, then you have to experiment. And I had two things go wrong in a pie I made for dear friends. One was a question of judgment; another, the unquestionable facts of physics. 

NUTTER-BUTTER CRUMB-CRUST CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE WITH BANNANAS

First, the experimental failure; I’d been told that you could use 16-18 of any sandwich-type cookie — Oreos, etc — and blend them to form a crumb crust, with the hydrogenated filling providing the needed fat. In a hubristic attempt to build strong flavor — please note wistful sound, in background, of wax wings melting as I flew too, too close to the sun — I thought I would try this trick with Nutter Butters. Grind, press into pie plate, bake, use — how hard could it be? 

But the resulting crumb crust was too crumbly. I think that — and this is a sentence that will make whoever the Surgeon General is wake up in the night with a silent scream — I think it’s because Nutter Butters are too lean, with a lower filing-to-cookie ratio than an Oreo. Next time, I’ll add melted butter — like, 2 tbsp or less — in the grinding process. 

So, FOR NEXT TIME: 

16-18 Nutter Butter Cookies; 2 TBSP molten butter. 

Grind cookies into fine crumbs; add molten butter for a few pulse of food processor. Press into pie plate; bake at 350 until golden brown and firm; remove from oven. 

FILLING: 

1.5 Bananas, ripe, cut into slices

Place layer of banana slices on top of cooled-to-warm crumb crust. 

(ROBERT EVANS NOTE: “Do I think about going back and tossing those banana slices in brown sugar and rum? Every Day. Would I change it? Like Hell.” (That sounds yummy, but also like the kind of thing that over-sugars a dish into inedibility. Since, you know, THE CRUST IS COOKIES.)

for CHOCOLATE CREAM, from Mark Bittman’s HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING. 

3/4 c Granulated Sugar

2 Tbsp Corn Starch

Salt

4 Eggs, separated (You just need the yolks — save the whites for a hearty breakfast, on which more later.) 

2 1/2 C Whole milk

2 Tsp vanilla

2 Tablespoons Butter, softened

2 oz. chopped/grated bittersweet chocolate (or unsweetened, You know,since THE CRUST IS COOKIES)

1) Combine granulated sugar with cornstarch and salt in medium saucepan. Mix in egg yolks. Add vanilla to milk; add milk and vanilla to egg-sugar mixture, and heat on medium to a low boil; add chocolate; whisk consistently for 10 mins; mixture should thicken. (Slow and low is the key to this, and make sure it comes to and stays above a boil to kill the egg-based enzyme that eats starch and makes it into water that cannot live past 167 degrees — science is awesome) 

2) Pour into crust over bananas with light hand; cool on rack; chill; serve with whip cream. (Which was my second, pure-physics error; I don’t think i gave the pie time to set, and rushed its service. No one noticed — as it was served with whip cream, because, uh, America, that’s why — but I wish I’d had allotted more time for the pie to set. 

And I am only thinking about this now, because when all this was going down, I was with my friends. And we laughed. I don’t know if I’d make that pie again — remembering more butter and more time, because cooking is an experiment, and here, as in life, mistakes are made — I know I’ll have those people over for dinner again in an eyeblink.  

I started worrying about the style guide, which is like naming your imaginary friends, 

James.