More Procrastination

Sitting in Cafe 13 for Nanowrimo editing group. I look up from my giant cup (more like a soup bowl) of coffee and see a photo of a castle in Slovenia. I realize I am analyzing the photo not in terms of composition or lighting, but in terms of how defensible the castle is and where would be the best place to launch an attack. There are some good spots for dumping boiling oil; almost a straight shot down the castle wall.

At the same time, I'm wondering what kind of pie to make to celebrate National Pie day. I'm thinking maybe some sort of cream pie, maybe dark chocolate or banana. I'm not really in the mood for a fruit pie. Or maybe a Normandy apple tart, although I'm not sure that really lives up to the spirit of National Pie day.

Melted Thoughts and Pie

Why does my computer reject my camera? Tonight none of the usual measures worked, and I ended up putting the memory card in my sister's camera. Vexing. The usb cords are not interchangeable.

My friend Najah got an e-vite to a 70th birthday party that came with attached pdf instructions. Potluck 5:30 to 7, Honoring Ceremony 7 to 8, Drum Circle 8-?. Rules for the Honoring Ceremony: Come before X, say 3 words that reflect your experience of X.

Uh huh. I wondered aloud if the guests were supposed to bow when it was their turn to "come before X", if they were supposed to back away & give a final bow after they said their 3 words. Megalomaniac, presumptuous & self important come to mind. The invitation also stipulated that $70 donations be made to X's favorite charity in her name. Miss Manners would be appalled.

The book signing for Mrs. Rowe's Little Book of Southern Pies was today, and was a great success. Mollie (my friend & the author) told me that non-fiction signings are considered a success if four books are bought and signed. We sold 16 books, over 50% of the amount we had . Mollie told me that many of the reporters, interviewers and readers she's spoken to think she is Mrs. Rowe, and that these are her recipes. Clearly, none of these folks read the introduction.

The tiny sample pies were also a hit. The Coconut Cream Pie was far and away the most popular - I made a dozen tartlets for sale - they were all gone by the time the event was over. They are going on the regular menu. People who don't like cream pie love this pie. A customer from Kentucky who said he has never found a coconut cream pie to match his mama's loved this pie. His eyes rolled back in his head and he made happy noises. He bought a book just for this recipe.

Friends I haven't seen for a while came to the shop. It was great.

To the left - Mollie, her husband Eric,
and their daughters - Tess (in yellow)
and Emma (in green). To the right, my friend Bev. Sean came with her triplets. The girls were toddlers when I met Sean in pastry school. Now they're are getting ready for first grade. Ginger came by, with delicious vegan chocolate chip cookies.

The heat is getting on my nerves. It was 84.7 degrees in the kitchen yesterday. It may not sound like much, but a chocolate kitchen should be 66-68 degrees. I miss winter. It's easier to cope with ice on the inside of the windows than it is to cope with sweltering heat.

I think we should put chocolate cream tartlets on the menu.

Wondering if Mollie & company are up for a day trip. Estes Park/Rocky Mountain National Park - elk wandering around, Bear Lake, Lily Lake. Or maybe Manitou Springs, with Garden of the Gods and Caverns of the Winds. Maybe Mount Evans, although that drive seems about as long as either Estes or Manitou.

Have spent the last few minutes staring blankly at the screen. Should probably call it a night and get some sleep. I owe Puppy an early morning walk. Neither of us likes the heat.

Broken Thoughts & Pie

I'm feeling very overscheduled for the next few weeks. Most of it's good stuff, aside from the work stuff it's all self-inflicted, but I'm not used to having so much planned in advance.

Here's some of what's been going on at work:

The nine wedding cakes for a client who had no requirements other than that the cakes "taste amazing". No requests other than "that lustre dust would be nice" . No wedding colors, no theme, no bridezilla nonsense.


3 chocolate cakes filled with pain d'epices (gingerbread spice) ganache, decorated with leaves.
3 white cakes filled with the Violette ganache, decorated with dragonflies.
3 red velvet cakes filled with Vrtnica Malina ganache (cranberry, raspberry & rose), decorated with sea shells & pearls. It's my subtle invocation to Aphrodite, the shells, the roses, the pearls.



Tarts of the week, clockwise from top: chocolate chess, mixed berry, cherry with kirsch & pandora spices in chocolate sucree, pear frangipane in chocolate sucree.

I have the pie song from Waitress stuck in my head. I want to make pie. Lots of pie. There is no recipe for Chocolate Strawberry Oasis, but it seems to be nothing more than a bittersweet chocolate pudding with a hint of spice poured over sliced fresh strawberries. It sounds really good right now, in spite of the cool, rainy weather.
Carmelized Onion pie. Tomato & Spinach pie. Tart Apple with Drunken Currants pie. mmmmmmmm, pie.

I'm housesitting for Najah this weekend, and what is usually 48 hours of uninterrupted solitude is being disrupted by family obligations. Both of the two nights away have been claimed. I rather resent this, but there is no graceful way to avoid it. Last night Najah showed me how to work her dvr & the multitude of remotes. We watched a couple episodes of True Blood. It has a dreadful effect on my accent, an effect that lasts for hours afterward unless I pay attention when I speak. (True Blood is set in Louisiana, in case you don't know).

The adjuster from Allstate took nearly 3 hours to complete what he said would be an hour-and-a-half appointment. We're getting a new roof out of it, so that's something positive. Everytime it's rained since the big storm (about every day or so), I keep looking up at the ceiling expecting a flood. So far, so good. I have a recurring waking nightmare that the roofers show up and rip the roof off while Mollie & her family are here for dinner. The adjuster, Mr. Carter, has a strong Southern accent and likes to over-explain. Read this with a drawl. "This is a five step process? Step one was when you called your agent to file a claim? Step two, that was when I called you to set up this appointment? Step three...that's this appointment?" And so on. I may have mentioned this last week. It's hard to remember that far back.

Another wedding &the book signing next weekend. Another wedding and a bellydance class field trip the weekend after that. Somehow, I am taking classes Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays starting next week. Two more weeks with Sammi, the Wonder Intern. Then an as-yet-to-be-determined new intern, who has already been named Not-Sammi.

Trying to come up with a menu for next week's dinner with Mollie & company that is easy, tasty and allows time for maximum visitation over a leisurely meal. Any ideas?

Crabapples

The final recipe of my pie-testing job. Crabapple. Months later than everything else was finished because, well, I had to wait for the tree in the front yard to be ready to harvest. There's really no other way to get crabapples, at least not out here. Not something you can find in the produce department.

They're tiny little things; it took two and a half pounds to get six cups of finely chopped crabapples. One hour and fifteen minutes of slicing and chopping tiny tiny apples.

Why, oh why, did someone think this was a good idea? It's definitely thrifty. It's using extremely local produce, handpicked at the peak of ripeness. It has a Little House on the Prairie kind of vibe to it - living off the land, using what you have, work hard for what you get.....
But oh, the tedium of chopping hundreds of tiny little crabapples. Tiny little apples that try to escape, rolling out from under the knife, refusing to let go of their stems. Much


harder to work with than their larger relatives. But it does bake up pretty - deep pink and bubbling inside a golden, sugar-sprinkled crust. It looks rather like rhubarb, and tastes rather like rhubarb. Rhubarb that's been crossed with a very tart Granny Smith apple. A hint of cinnamon would have been good. It was quite tasty, our dinner guests really liked it.

Would I make this again? Laura, who had nothing to do with the pie said " It was worth the effort for me", meaning that while she wouldn't do it herself, it was certainly worth the eating if someone else made it.

That's pretty much how I feel about it. It was good, but not worth the trouble. It would however be a fiendish addition to the new apprentice hazing arsenal:

chop the flour

detail my car

prep 10 pounds of crabapples

No. That would just be cruel.

Easy as pie.......

It's 12:33am. My last pie of the day is in the oven - five recipes for a total of 6 pies, because one made two pies. French apple, that one, although aside from thinly sliced apples there is nothing remotely French about it.

This one is Strawberry Daiquiri - it's creamy and is a groovy shade of 50's Cadillac Pink.

2 French Apple and "Hickory Nut" - which had to be made with pecans as hickory nuts are only available in certain areas of the country. They also have extremely hard shells which require a hammer and muscle power to crack. Pecans will do just fine.

This one got me free mounting and balancing of the new tires I had to put on my car. Caramel Coconut - it's a frozen concoction reminiscent of Mounds Bar crossed with a Samoa cookie.

Grape pie. One of the few recipes for such that doesn't require peeling the grapes. Seriously.

The fourth and finally successful attempt at blackberry pie. I really prefer berries to be fresh, but this wasn't bad.

It's been a rough week. 10-12 hours days at work, cake, cake and more cake. Then I come home to pie.......

It's 1:05 am. The kitchen is clean. My last pie - Damson Plum, variation #1 (made with regular plums because Damsons are not available) is out of the oven. It boiled over a bit. Which is ok. It's how you can be sure a fruit pie is done. Besides, I finally got around to buying a silicone mat for the oven. No more scraping - just wipe and go. Easy as pie.

Another 7 of which are waiting to be done........

what's under there?

Creamy lemony goodness, that's what. This is the never-fail lemon pie, and it lived up to it's name. Unlike most meringue covered pies, which have 3-4 times as much meringue as filling, this one has almost twice as much filling as meringue, cradled by a crust made of crushed gingersnaps. It's pretty close to perfect.

I had no idea when I started this project how much strategy is involved - just making the shopping list took over an hour. It took three stores to find everything I needed. Manufacturers seems to have downsized cans and tubs in the twenty or so years since most of the recipes were written. Almost everything was an ounce or so smaller. Chocolate wafers are ridiculously expensive. Custard mix - really hard to find. That was in the third store, just before I was about to give up and go to the English market.

So, here I am, three recipes down, fifteen more to go. In the first batch. But now, it's bedtime.

pie's the limit

My friend Mollie is a writer and editor, mostly non-fiction. She's going into production on her second cookbook, and offered me the job of recipe tester. For a book of pie - lots and lots of pie. All to be done in rather short order, as the book is due to be published in July.

Each recipe will have to be done at least once, probably more. If you're in the Denver area, and want some pie or know someone who does..........

It's going to be a challenge, following recipes exactly. Not substituting ingredients. Taking painstaking notes, writing them up so that someone who does not share my brain will understand them and be able to have a happy experience baking pie. Figuring out how to fill in the forms on computer and email them to Mollie......

Naturally, this opportunity coincides with a six week spazzalanche at work - easter production, regular production, 0ne partner out of town every other week, possibly building out the new kitchen, breaking in the intern.......if you need me, I'll be in the kitchen.