During my first solo weekend in Chicago, I took care of the ususal tasks required from a young twentysomething: grocery shopping, hemming my chef pants, ironing my chef jacket, and studying the properties of butter, cream, eggs, and flour. Exciting right?!

I’ve lived in my apartment for over a week now, but I’ve found that when I live somewhere new, my residence does not start to feel like ‘home’ until I’ve broken in the kitchen a bit. That’s why I chose to spend my Saturday puttering around in the kitchen.

I had some blueberries and raspberries with a short shelf life, and a nearly overripe pear. What to do, what to do? One of the first things they have taught us in pastry school is that nothing should ever be wasted. Luckily I was inspired to make a pear berry crisp after flipping through a cookbook for dinner ideas.

You can use almost any fruit you want, and the pear, blueberry, and raspberry combination I used was surprising delicious. I made half a recipe since it was just myself who would be eating it. The topping is not crunchy like most crisps, it was much softer, like a crumbled muffin, with a strong vanilla taste. It reminded me of eating a coffeecake with a streusel topping. Bonus: the apartment smelled divine. Double bonus: it comes together quickly.

I liked to eat mine at room temperature and slightly warmed, depending on my mood. Either temperature, it’s delicious with a dollop of thick, creamy Greek yogurt.

Pear and Berry Crisp (Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros)

• 3 large pears
• 1 cup of mixed berries
• 1/3 cup superfine sugar
• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 pound (1 stick), plus 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. Generously butter a 14 by 8 1/2 by 2 1/2-inch (or a 13 by 9-inch) ovenproof dish. Peel, core, and slice the pears, and put them in the dish. Mix in the berries and scatter half the superfine sugar over the fruit.

Mix together the flour, brown sugar, and the other half of the superfine sugar in a bowl. Add the butter and vanilla and rub them in with your fingertips, working until the mixture isn’t smooth but looks like damp clustery sand. Your fingers might be tired.

Scatter the topping over the fruit to cover it completely in a good thick layer. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the top is nicely golden and some berry juice has oozed up a bit over teh crust and darkened it here and there.

Let it cool down a touch and then serve warm with whipped cream, a bowl of custard, vanilla ice cream, or Greek yogurt.

Yield: 8 servings