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I spent many summers growing up at overnight camp. It was (and still is as far as I know) predominantly a Northeast, mostly Jewish phenomenon. Your parents pack a heavy trunk full of clothes, snacks, and whatever other doodads you might need, and off you go for eight weeks of freedom from responsible adults. Your overseers (ie, counselors) are usually college students, and, let’s face it, college students are not always the most reliable individuals.

As a kid, it was great.

One of the regular routines at my overnight camp was the weekly cookout. Instead of having to trudge to the dining hall for whatever sludge was being served that day, you would get a delivery of those mostly frozen, flat-as-a-pancake hamburger patties that tasted about the same as they looked. Outside each group of cabins (called “bunks”), there was a fire pit, around which a group of let’s say 25 or so kids and 5 counselors would gather to prepare the evening meal.

First you’d start the fire – but not before sending one of the newbie campers on a wild goose chase around camp asking for the “left handed smoke shifter.” Once the fire was nice and hot, one of the counselors would take charge of cooking the burgers. Nothing fancy – just slap the pinkish-grey patties on the grate and let it go for a few minutes. These were not aspiring chefs at the helm.

But then one summer, I had a counselor who did something a little bit different. As soon as he put one of the thawed patties on the grate, he would slather on a layer of ketchup. The first time he did it, we all looked at him with a “What exactly are you doing?” shrug.

You know what, though? It worked. We were 12-year-olds who had grown used to summers of these burgers tasting like dry charcoal and now they actually tasted halfway decent. The burgers quickly became the stuff of legend around camp – the little secret of the ketchup whisperer.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been at overnight camp, but cooking the ketchup into hamburger meat is one of the little secrets I’ve taken with me for the rest of my life. Every recent pre-COVID summer, I manned the grill at one of our neighborhood fundraisers for a few hours and had to deal with those pre-frozen, flat-as-a-pancake patties. I used the ketchup slather technique and was consistently bombarded with “These taste so much better than the last guy. What’s your secret?”

Now, when I make burgers at home – and hopefully the same goes for you – the quality of the meat is just a tad better than the frozen patty. Nonetheless, I still rely on the same principle as the ketchup slatherer. When I am forming my hamburger patties, I always add 2-3 spoonfuls of barbecue sauce (this is my standard that I always have ready in my fridge – it stays good for months) to seal in some extra moisture. It’s important not to overdue it or else you may have a burger than falls apart on the grill.

I find that adding some sauce in the preliminary phase avoids the danger of a dry burger no matter if it’s overcooked. My dad for some reason likes his burger well done (don’t try this at home, kids), but even he claims these are juicy burgers when cooked to his desired temperature. When cooked to a perfect medium, they are quite tasty with whatever topping you like. I go for cheddar, bacon, mushrooms, and a sunny side up egg most of the time these days.

It’s these sorts of “life hacks” that we pick up at various points growing up that we cling to as our personalities develop. Maybe you learned that your hair looks better if you brush it with your left hand for exactly 5 minutes. Maybe your doctor learned in medical school that the first question she should ask every patient while looking them in the eye is, “So how are you doing today?” It’s these little things that make us unique, that make us special.

Now go bring me that left-handed smoke shifter – the fumes are getting in my eye.

If you know me, you know that I can be fascinated by something and go down the rabbit hole, occasionally getting lost along the way. Eventually, I make my way back and move forward. Well, get ready for my next journey.

While quarantining, I suggested to my family that we watch the sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica. I had sporadically seen episodes as my husband watched it years ago. At the time, I was perpetually lost. But being that we owned the Blu-ray box set and had the time, I hoped to start at the beginning and see it all the way through. Which we did! Nightly, we would sit down as a family and queue up the next episode (or 2 or 3). As we neared the end, I started dreaming about wandering through corridors on the battleship and awoke to declare we were binge watching the final 6 episodes because I needed answers.

We bunkered down, finished the series, and… I will say not all the answers were the answers that I wanted. Oh well. Meanwhile, I had been supplementing my Battlestar habit with cast interviews on YouTube. Once we completed the show, I returned to several videos that included spoilers (SPOILER ALERT: I’m not sharing any spoilers). In an interview with Katee Sackhoff (who plays the kick-ass, female version of Starbuck – quite the controversial departure from the original series), she shared that she was happy with the story arc for her character. That intrigued me even more. I wasn’t sure I was in agreement, and who was this Katee Sackhoff? A bit more spelunking and I uncovered her humorous exercise videos, interesting nutrition tips, and the fact that she is Bo-Katan Kryze in The Mandalorian! (Upon sharing my newly-acquired knowledge with the household, I was informed, “We already knew that, and she voiced the same character in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.” Yes, I live with a bunch of smartie pants.)

Back to Katee - she has played strong women characters for 20+ years. And is funny! After watching her eating different international candy, try cryotherapy, and cook, I encountered her video responding to viewer comments titled “Why Can’t Cinderella Have Muscles?” Twenty-three minutes into the video, Katie is presented with the following:

In response, Katee shares that it is hard for her to even comment.

“Why can’t Cinderella have muscles? Because we have this unrealistic expectation of what an animated character should look like? I think that we should spend less time projecting what we think women should be or anyone should be for that matter and more time realizing that nothing limits anyone from playing any role except imagination.”

Here I sat, as both a woman and a mother with a daughter. In a time of great discussion about diversity, inclusion, and equity. And I was inspired to think a bit more broadly about the preconceived notions that I might have. I had never envisioned a muscular Cinderella. But when presented with the question of, ‘Why not?’…I thought “Of course there should be.” We just need to get out of that proverbial box that we often find ourselves in.

While the storybook stepsisters lounged around, tried to sing, and ate all day, Cinderella was working. All the chores, indoor and out. Sounds like a pretty physically demanding day that would rival a bootcamp workout, producing a good deal of strength and stamina.

I’m with Katee on this one. Equity means removing barriers and limiting beliefs. Bring on the tone, sleek arms for the next incarnation of the princess with a solid work ethic. Break with convention and imagine an alternative to the traditional damsel in distress.

I don't do a lot of baking. It's not that I can't or don't like to, it's just that I don't have much occasion to do so. Especially in Covid times, we aren't exactly having a lot of people over for dinner, so there isn't much of a point to baking a pie for a "special occasion" where we sit on a Zoom call with our family.

Unlike cooking a meal, baking requires precision. Time, weight, and temperature are all critical. If you add the wrong amount of ingredient X at the wrong time, you are basically courting disaster. It is much easier to fix a mistake when you are working with chicken or vegetables, which is nice when that's what you have to worry about 5 nights a week.

But a few weeks back, we broke our Covid quarantine and actually had people over. Ooh, ooh, special occasion! Even if was only another family of 2 adults and 2 kids, it meant something to all of us.

So I was going all out. Appetizers, entree, sides, dessert - a 6-course meal to remember. Our guests informed us that they were trying to "eat healthy," which made things a bit more complicated, but nothing I didn't think I could handle.

After doing some research into healthy(ish) desserts, I decided on this Mixed Berry Pavlova?.

The recipe requires a lot of sitting around and waiting as things cool down and/or thicken, which isn't my specialty. Not surprisingly, on my first go, I botched it. I'm not sure what went wrong (did I fail to beat things long enough? Mismeasured something? I'm not sure) but basically the meringue was a runny mess when I tried pouring it onto the parchment paper.

Into the trash it went. Time to try again.

And this time, I paid attention, following each step very carefully (I didn't have time to mess up again). I was able to learn from my initial mistakes and correct them. This is what the finished product looked like. It was good - not great, but a solid B+.

In some ways, medicine is a lot like baking. You precisely follow certain procedures, just like a recipe, going step by step by step very carefully. However, you can't "throw it in the trash" when something goes wrong in the OR. A mistake, especially a significant one, can be catastrophic. That's why I'm glad my mistakes in the kitchen don't hurt anything more than my pride, and make me marvel at the confidence and skill that our learners in continuing medical education have to hone year after year.

I just finished up a project where we heard from a number of patients that their primary care providers would only recommend conservative treatment for their skin issues because (and this is just my guess) they didn't want to make a mistake with something new that they weren't familiar with or confident in. There is a big push in many of our programs to introduce providers to the "latest and greatest" that may, indeed, be a substantial improvement on the traditional standard of care. It's our job to find the right recipe to develop and deliver content that offers true and reliable insight that providers can trust. That's the only way they are going to feel comfortable enough trying out something new whose results may not be as predictable as the old standbys.

We all have our favorite recipes that we make over and over again because we know they are good. But it's the challenge of making something different, something new, something (hopefully) better, that keeps the kitchen interesting. Something for us all to keep in mind as we plan our education.