Queen of Rambles

Amazing how just a few extra drops of water can turn a flaky, tender, beautiful pie crust into a piece of old shoe leather. I do fear that my poor pumpkin pies will have a nasty, store bought crust kind of taste and it would infuriate me but I am too happy to be infuriated. I’ve only known one person capable of making a perfect pie crust every time so at least I’m not alone in the quest for the perfect ratio of fat, flour and water. My dear grandma makes the best pie in the history of the world. Seriously. It’s a lot to live up to, but sometimes I do manage a yummy tender, flaky crust. Just not every time.

The funny thing is, the woman couldn’t make a cookie to save her life. I never ever saw her make a cookie. My mom said when they were kids she never made cookies. Cookies, according to her, are a waste of time. I don’t follow the logic, but if you’re at her house you can count on being served a perfect pie or two, a beautifully frosted two layer cake, or a banana pudding. The banana pudding only comes out if someone is dieting since it’s her version of a healthy dessert, made complete with real butter and heavy cream. It has bananas, though, so it must be healthy. She would never dream of making a cake in a square pan and just slapping some frosting from a jar on it. My mother and her lazy rectangular cakes and gobs of cookie dough are the bane of her existence.

Never knew cookies were evil, did you?

Anyway, despite my pumpkin pie mess I am totally and completely happy. I’ve been watching A Christmas Story while baking and laughing my ass off. Why does that silly movie bring me such joy? I don’t think it’s the movie itself. I think it’s the symbol: I’m doing exactly what I want to do, exactly the way I want to do it without a single soul telling me what I should do. This is by far the best Christmas of my life. Or maybe just the best Christmas of my adult life. I remember one particularly happy Christmas from my childhood.

It was before my grandad died, so I must have been five or six. We had Christmas at my house for a change and some of my dad’s family came over (first and only time we ever celebrated with them). I got the best present ever from my grandma and grandad: some kind of real working blender on a kid scale. I had the best time ever making drinks for everyone all night long. Now that I look back on it, the whole thing was wildly inappropriate. Why would you have a six year old making mixed drinks (and looking back there must have been a TON of booze) for a bunch of alcoholics? I can remember my mom was very tense and kept trying to take away my blender, but everyone else was shushing her and encouraging me. I lapped up the attention. Hmmmm. Maybe that wasn’t the best Christmas ever after all! I bet my mom would recall that as one of the worst Christmases ever. I remember afterwards my mom told my dad his family was never welcome at her house again. There must have been even more going on than I remember.

But this Christmas there will be no wildly inappropriate happenings. Just some good food, some good fun and lots of FREEDOM!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2003 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.