Have you ever made meringue cookies? If not, I’ll give you a quick rundown. I promise, it’s important for the story.

Step 1: separate egg yolks from the whites

Step 2: beat egg whites (with a few other ingredients like salt and cream of tartar) until SOFT peaks form when you lift the mixer out of the bowl

Step 3: add the sugar and beat some more until the egg whites are shiny and form STIFF peaks when you lift the mixer out of the bowl

A Perfect Meringue Cookie

Seems simple enough, right? Wrong.

These cookies, which I have made many times with varying success, are often served as a Passover treat, as they have no flour or yeast. Meringue is used everywhere, though. Frosting, pavlova, lemon meringue pie. You get the picture; it’s popular enough. This year, I was hoping to share the cookie version with my fellow fellows, and so I took the plunge.

If you read any meringue recipe there are many warnings:

“EGGS MUST BE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE”

“ANY YOLK IN THE WHITES WILL RUIN YOUR MERINGUE”

“ADDING SUGAR TOO QUICKLY WILL RESULT IN RUNNY MERINGUE”

“DON’T ATTEMPT ON A HUMID DAY”

“IF YOUR BOWL IS TOO BIG, PEAKS WILL NOT FORM”

It sounds more like a “Danger!” sign than a fun cookie recipe. However, I was confident in my baking abilities; it was already getting late and so I just dove right in. My eggs came straight out of the refrigerator, I definitely dropped some egg yolk in the bowl, and I may or may not have added the sugar in just two pours (it recommends 4). Despite all this, my intuition was to keep going and I thought, “I’m sure it will turn out just fine!”

Well. My egg whites never really formed soft peaks. So, as you might imagine, when I moved on to Step 3, added the sugar and continued to beat at high speed, stiff peaks also did not form. But I was SURE that they would come eventually. One huge mistake meringue beaters make again and again is under-beating. They look at their runny, shiny eggs and think: I messed up. Game over. I was not going to be an under-beater.

“I will not give up,” I thought. I knew if I just beat a little longer, the effort would be well worth it. Or did I? I began to doubt myself. What did I do wrong? How could I have messed this up so badly? Should I just throw this batch away? As I held that electric mixer in place my mind began to wander.

How many times in my life have I worked on a project where all of the work seemed worthless? How many times have I started something and not finished, because I could not see how my effort was going to pay off?

And then my mind moved from myself, to Detroit. In recent years Detroit has been portrayed as a city of “opportunity.” Hundreds of entrepreneurs, artists, techies, non-profits, small business and large corporations have flooded the city hoping to make an impact or a big buck. Who is reigning resilient and who has given up, unable to withstand the pressure, difficulty, and time it takes to make change? Who has been here all along, seen it all and continued to overcome obstacles, regardless of challenges? More importantly, who has innovated, realizing that although their meringue might not turn into a perfect cookie, it still has great worth?

Detroit does not need fleeting change agents. Detroit needs a large group of people who trust themselves to leave a great legacy for the right reasons. It needs people, organizations and companies that are willing to stay in it for the long-haul.  It needs organizations like the Neighborhood Service Organization, Southwest Solutions, COTS, Blight Busters,  Eastern Market, The Riverfront Conservancy (just to name a few) that have served the city for years, have great relationships with its people and have no intention of leaving. Of course, none are perfect, but there is something to be said for permanence.

I may sound like a hypocrite as a newcomer to Detroit with no idea where my future might take me. However, if there’s anything I’ve learned here it’s the importance of community, history and pride in one’s home. Regardless of whether I stay here, I know I will take that with me wherever I go.

Remember that failed meringue? I turned it into frosting for my flourless chocolate cake!

The Final, Unexpected, Product