One May Win a Battle Only to Loose the Pie.

I have been cooking since I was six. Four if you count that one time my dad let me stand over the stove and watch ramen boil. Which I overcooked because hellllooooo I was four and he didn't tell me why the timer was set. Anyway I had to wait until I was a mature six before I could make scrambled eggs, then I was off. It was scrambled eggs for an afternoon snack, breakfast, let's celebrate 2 pm and no school with scrambled eggs. Plain eggs boring? Put hacked off pieces of cheddar cheese in them. Mushrooms! GASP, DROOL!! MUSHROOMS AND CHEESE!!! Oh ya. I rocked the fancy pants scrambled egg world as a first grader. In my mom's defense, she was actually teaching my brother who is 2 years older than I am, but I would NOT be left out of any learning and she just had to teach me!!! So she did. This meant my brother and I were old and wise together, and because we were wise and mature with a lot of knowledge to share with the younger and less fortunate, we taught our 4 year old sister how to make scrambled eggs when mom wasn't around. Her education would not be neglected as long as ours was. To our credit, little sister neither burned the house down, nor burnt herself - we instilled the fear of getting hurt then getting caught. It was enough. Now she is a far better cook than I. It's the 2 year leg up she had.

So with all this experience under my belt, I just need so say: I love cooking, I love the learning, experiencing new recipes, new flavors, experimenting, cooking for others (not so much just for myself), the process, the successes, and some times even the failures...sometimes.

Enter my arch nemesis: Pie.

Every time I make a pie crust I end up having to piece the crust together. Rolled out it's oblong and ugly and no matter how it is turned will NOT fit the pie plate. If it is a berry pie, the lattice is uneven in the places it hasn't crumbled and fallen, and custard base pies...bah! The only pies to turn out for me have gram cracker crusts and are filled with pudding like filling and topped with whipped cream. (Yes, the same pies your 7 year old cousin brings to family functions. Shut up.) But baked crust; no. At least not until Monday. I rolled out a crust, oblong and ugly, but IT FIT THE DISH FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!! And I had to share with the world. In picture form. Taken with my phone. And now my most recent pie odyssey will be told in the camera phone picture quality!

And I just knew everything was going to be absolutely perfect when the pie crust fit in the pie dish. Dad's birthday pie would be amazing!

Look, isn't it pretty?! Yay!! Leftover for a cicinnamon and sugar snack! Can't you just taste the optimism?!

Now for the filling. And the meringue. Hmm maybe the filling will thicken up as it cools.


Put it all together, bake it, and doesn't that look lovely?

Here it is baked on it's way to the birthday dad! It sloshes and jiggles like a shirtless man at a football game.


All over my car.



Oh my goodness!! It's a sixtieth birthday miracle!!!


Ummmmmm the pie fairy named Marie Calendar came, that was the miracle.


So where was my pie?


...


The drawer of shame.


Actually that was the only place in the fridge it fit. It was! But it came out to play for the singing.

See, that curly green thing is a candle. And those forks right there, ya the pie was on the table!

...Um no, none of those forks ever actually touched the pie.

Next time Pie! Next time!!! You haven't seen the last of me!!