All Things Yummy

Mom was right about the cake . . .

My Baby Sister, aged two, had crawled up on my Mom’s lap.

It was cuddling time.

I should probably mention that this didn’t happen often.

Cuddling, I mean.

Oh, not because Mom didn’t wish it.

No.

It was because we couldn’t get Baby Sister to slow down long enough to stay in one place.

She was one of those children who are always as bit blurry around the edges.

Because they are moving so fast.

Where was I?

Oh, yes.

Cuddling time.

Mom held her close.

Then counted her tiny, pink toes.

And all of her fingers.

And finally poked her round little tummy.

“What’s in there?” she asked.

Baby Sister looked at her and shrugged.

“Are there yummy things in there?”

Baby Sister looked at her tummy, lifting her little dress to see better. Then she looked back at Mom.

Mom went on. “Maybe there’s some cake and ice cream.”

Baby Sister’s eyes got wide.

“And some cookies. Maybe some pie and candy and pudding.”

With each new treat mentioned, Baby Sister’s blue eyes got wider and wider.

“And chocolate.”

Baby Sister could stand it no longer.

She pulled her dress up as far as she could. “Open it!” she said, pointing to her tummy. “Open it, Mommy!”
Enough talk. Let's get to the good stuff . . .

It's a Pie Day!

My Mom. Doing what she did best!

Pie.

That king of treats.

The amazing union of lightly browned and flaky crust and yummy filling.

And topped with a delicious scoop of iced or whipped cream . . .

It's like heaven.

In your mouth.

Spilled on the floor and reduced to its sticky, disparate parts, it's not as good.

But we won't go there.

And I just finished cleaning.
So . . . pie.

Today is pie-making day.

Whenever our family celebrates, we do it with pie.

It's a long-standing tradition that spans one generation.

Okay, we started it, but it's still a good tradition!

So, because tomorrow is the launching of my new book, Carving Angels, and every party requires pie, I will spend today making it.

Pie, I mean.

I love making it.

My Mom made fantastic pie. 

Sweet. Flaky. (This is the only place where 'flaky' is a good thing.)

And utterly delicious.

And so, when I make it, using her recipes, it's like spending time with her.

I even have a picture, which I prop up and talk to.

Okay, it's weird, but she's been gone for nearly a decade and I miss her.

And now, in honour of this grand occasion, I am including some of my favourite 'pie' quotes:

1. "Keep your knives, we're having pie!"  ~My Dad. Just before Mom whacked him.
2. "Keep your fork, Duke, there's pie."  ~The proprietress of a diner to the Duke of Edinborough.
3. "A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around."  ~E.W. Howe
4. "It is utterly insufficient (to eat pie only twice a week), as anyone who knows the secret of our strength as a nation and the foundation of our industrial supremacy must admit. Pie is the American synonym of prosperity, and its varying contents, the calendar of the changing seasons. Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished."  ~EDITORIAL New York Times, 1902
5. "But I, when I undress me
   Each night, upon my knees
   Will ask the Lord to bless me
   With apple-pie and cheese."
               ~Eugene Field
6. "Thy breath is like the steame of apple-pyes."  ~Arcadia   Robert Green, 1590
7. "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."  ~ Isaac Asimov
8. If all the world were Apple pie, And all the seas were ink, And all the trees were bread and cheese, What would we have to drink?  ~ Unknown

I have to go. My Mom is waiting.
Happy pie day!

It's All About the Food. And My Mom

The ranch cook. With Chris and Jerry.

Mom could make anything taste good.

And it didn't matter what she had going in her life, meals were always plentiful and on time.

She would serve a full, cooked breakfast of ham, eggs, pancakes and oatmeal, with lunch simmering on the stove and dinner baking in the oven so both meals could be produced quickly as soon as she got done gardening, cleaning or doing chores, got back from driving us kids to school, picking up whatever was needed from the hardware, the feed store, and the grocery, and attended one of her numerous Herefrord club meetings or quilting or sewing bees.

Sometimes I think about the scheduling nightmare that her life must have been.

Thinking about it makes me tired.

I've said it before, I'll say it again . . .

She was a saint.

But back to the food . . .

When Mom was 10 years old, she went with her dad and brothers up to the Berg family's 'other place' to cook while Grandpa and the boys brought in the hay crop.

She often described the little wood stove she used for her meals.

“It had the littlest oven,” she told me, “just big enough to fit in one pie.”

She was making pie???!

At ten years old???!

By herself???!

Okay, 'saint' just doesn't quite cover it.

By the time I was ten, I figured I was doing extremely well because I knew how to eat pie.

But I digress . . .

So, at the age of ten, she was doing all of the cooking for her father and three older brothers.

Well, she certainly learned how to cook.

Mom could open the fridge (that same fridge that one of us kids had just looked into and pronounced, 'empty'), and produce a hearty, rib-sticking meal.

In minutes.

And totally without the aid of a microwave.

Okay, she had all the modern conveniences. Electric stove. Running water.

Toaster.

Cheese Whiz. (But that is another story . . .)

But still, the meals she could produce.

Mmmm.

Her roasts were works of gustatory art.

Her pastries and pies had to be tasted to be believed.

Even her vegetables were unsurpassed by anything available in the vast dining world.

Mom could take cauliflower that she had grown and preserved (freezer – another story). Cook and serve it in such a manner that not a scrap was left over.

I tried it with my kids.

Somehow, when I prepared frozen caluiflower, it just came out . . . soggy.

And disgusting.

Oh, Mother, where art thou?

I did learn how to make her pies.

But that was all.

To this day, my siblings and I contact eachother regularly, asking if anyone knows the recipe for . . .

No one does.

When I cross over to the other side, it will be with a pen and paper in hand.

The first thing I will ask Mom will be, “What the heck is your recipe for your angel food cake topping?”

Notice I said 'heck'. That's because you can't use anything stronger in Heaven.

Where I know Mom is.

Probably cooking.

Sigh.