Queen of Rambles

I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandma, which makes me think about pie. She was a fabulous pie maker, always insisting on having one ready whenever she was expecting company. For special occasions she would make cakes, but her real joy was pies. Everything was made from scratch from the crust to the pudding to the meringue or the fruit filling. Nothing except pumpkin was ever from a can.

I’ve made a few pies in my life but they never measure up and they are a hell of a lot of work. I’ve tried frozen crusts, but they are so disappointing that they aren’t worth the money wasted on the pie. Instead, I try my best to make a flaky, crisp crust but I’ve never been able to come close to my grandma’s crust. Honestly, I’ve never had a crust from anyone, even her own sister, that came close to her crust.

Today I kept thinking about her chocolate cream pie, so I finally had to give in and make it. I seriously don’t know how she did all the pie baking she did throughout her life. She would never bake cookies because they were “too much trouble” yet she’d make a pie weekly when we were younger.

Pies are a lot of trouble! It took me hours to make this silly cream pie. I suppose if I made the crust in a food processor it might go faster, but I don’t have one. My grandma always made hers by using two knives to slash through the shortening so that’s how I do it.

Then I had to make the filling, which meant standing in front of the hot stove for what felt like hours. I know she always used milk to make her pudding, so that’s what I used though my recipe called for whipping cream. I really don’t need that many calories! I do wish I had some of her recipes, but despite years of begging she never gave me any. She didn’t follow recipes. Everything was “add enough so it looks right.” When you have no idea what that look might be it doesn’t really help.

Then there was the meringue. Hours holding the beater.

Then there was the cooling period. Hours and hours and hours of just waiting for that delicious pie to be cool enough not to run.

And then there was the first taste.

Pure nastiness.

I don’t know what I did, but the crust was undercooked, the meringue was salty and the filling was strange. All that work for nothing! I’m sad, but also glad. My grandma still reigns supreme as pie mistress and maybe my belly fat won’t add ten inches over night.

I have had really bad heart burn all day so I probably don’t need pie anyway.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 9:29 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.