Pie Quest 4: The Pie Pan

A soggy bottom has been the scourge of my pie baking adventure. If I could conquer the half-raw, tough, unappetizing bottom crust, the rest of the pie should just fall into place. Is it the dough recipe? Is it the pan? Is it the oven? Why yes. All of these, but especially THE PAN. I was perusing the King Arthur Baking Company’s website for pie baking tips one day and found THE KEY TO MY PIE BAKING SUCCESS. Yes, the key is… (drumroll please)… A METAL PIE PAN. Eureka!

Pie quest 3: French silk chocolate pie

My quest of a well-baked, delicious pie continues with a family favorite: French Silk Chocolate Pie. My daughter requested one for her birthday dessert and I was only too happy to oblige. This pie requires a baked pie shell. I have had many failures in the past with baking an empty pie shell: they tend to shrink down to nothing in the pie pan no matter what I do. It’s time to do some research.

Pie Quest 2: Chicken Pot Pie

The quest continues with an attempt at homemade crust for a chicken pot pie. My mom was a pie master. Every kind of pie. Including slippery pot pie and baked pot pie. For this challenge I elected to try her recipe for chicken pot pie crust.

The Great Pie Quest

‘Twas Christmas Day and all through the kitchen,

The scent of pie baking had my taste buds a-twitchin’.

We were all nestled in recliners,

Wondering when we would be pie-diners.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a bad, runny peach pie— provoking a tear.

I didn’t laugh when I saw it,

But decided to call it.

No more soggy bottoms or inedible pie could I face!

But I exclaimed ere I wrapped apron ‘round waist,

I will learn to mix and to roll and use nary a fake,

But endeavor to start from scratch and bake a good bake.

And dash it all, dash it all, I will put up a fight,

So may the Great Pie Quest begin, and to all a good bite!

I know, I know, it’s not Christmas— it’s almost Easter! However, my Great Pie Quest began on Christmas Day 2023. Like many other great endeavors, this quest was birthed in a cauldron (or oven) of disappointment and disillusion. Pie-baking failure has dogged my steps throughout my sojourn on this earth. Buy why? Isn’t the expression “easy as pie”???

Reaping the Whirlwind

Chaos. Confusion. Turmoil. Characteristics of a whirlwind. A literal whirlwind is a fast-moving, spinning column of air that is in contact with the ground— which means it is full of dust and debris. Picture a big, dirty, garbage-filled blast of wind. If you were to try to walk through it, you would be gasping in lung-fulls of gritty air, your eyes would be essentially blinded by stinging dust, your skin would be scratched and scuffed raw, you’d be disoriented and panicked. You’d do anything to get out of it and back to a calm, still, pure-clean atmosphere. All you’d want to do is breath deep. To rid your lungs, eyes and skin of the imbedded grit.

No one wants to walk through a whirlwind. And yet. We all know people who have indeed reaped the whirlwind. Or maybe we have experienced this in our own lives. Living in such a way that we have sown the wind and now find ourselves, seemingly inexplicably, reaping the whirlwind.

Self Sacrifice

It’s Memorial Day. I’m humbled and grateful for the sacrifices made to obtain and maintain the freedoms I (usually so effortlessly and thoughtlessly) enjoy every day. Countless soldiers and citizens have sacrificed their own freedoms. Freedom to do what they want; to enjoy love, friends and family; to walk, laugh, breathe…

For the last month or so I’ve been working on my husband’s genealogy. I’ve been cataloging photos and death certificates as well as cleaning up mistakes on their listings in findagrave.com and familysearch.org (both great resources by the way! You wouldn’t believe how much info is out there!) As I trace various family lines back through the generations, I’ve found loads of soldiers who have served in WW2, WW1, the Civil War and the Revolutionary War. There’s a family who lived in Gettysburg during the famed Civil War battle who documented their tribulations of trying to survive in a war-torn town, keep their small children safe and their home and business intact.

Best Friends

BFF— best friends forever. As a child you may hear that you’re someone’s BFF then get “dumped” by them before the school year is out. But there are some friends that are true BFFs.

Our granddaughter’s BFF is her owl stuffty, Bobby. Bobby has been her favorite from the very beginning, keeping her company in her bassinet. Now it’s been four years, and Bobby has been through thick and thin with our sweet girl. When she recently got a new bike, her very first thought was to run and get Bobby to put in the basket. She melts my heart.

Attentive Bobby at breakfast.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’

C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain

Bobby, the ever present companion.

A BFF is dependable, loyal, involved in the minutia of your life, rejoices when you rejoice, weeps when you weep, encourages, listens and pays attention to what’s important to you. I am blessed to have some friends like this. I know that they’ll laugh at my stories, pray for me when I’m in distress and boost me up when I lack confidence. These friends are a treasure beyond price. And it may sound trite, but it’s true- my husband is my bestest BFF.

Save it or pitch it?

“Will anyone I know be happier if I save this?” This insightful question comes from Margaretha Magnusson, author of “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning”: a tiny little memoir/self-help book simply advising that you go through all your stuff and get rid of most of it before you die so your kids don’t have to deal with your junk. She throws away or keeps cards/letters etc. on the basis of “will anyone be happier if I save this”… if not, she pitches them. Not a bad idea.

The Actual Library

I drove to the actual library today. You know, the building in town where they keep a lot of books you can borrow? Paper books. And DVDs in little plastic cases. I used to go to the library all the time. It was always one of my favorite places. I remember my first library card. It was made out of card stock and had a little metal plate on it embossed with my number.

These days my library card is a bar code— or I can just give them my name to check out material. But I read a lot of books on the eCloud library, or on Kindle, or paper books that I buy used and give away after I read them. This became more of a thing during Covid when we couldn’t go to public places. Apparently I’ve been neglecting the library ever since!

The Mayor of Casterbridge

The story of a life poorly lived is portrayed in Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Hardy published his novel in 1886 with a subtitle of “The Life and Death of a Man of Character.” I didn’t read the book. I watched a three hour 2003 adaptation on PBS.

Spoiler alert— here’s the basic story. The main character, Michael Henchard, makes one foolish or wicked decision after another.