On Pie (and Pi)

All this time, my friends, with over 400 posts on this blog, pies have eluded me. Maybe you haven't noticed. But I have. There are only nine pies on this whole blog - one is a pot pie, one a quiche with store-bought crust, one is really a cobbler, and most of the others are chilled pies with cookie crusts. Cookie crusts I can do. But the real crust, the flaky pastry thing, has been beyond my reach, despite countless endeavors. My lemon meringue is really the only "regular" pie worth posting, and it's good. But again, I have just used frozen crusts from the store. Because I can't make one for nothing.

And the fillings haven't been much better. My two experiments at Thanksgiving - a pear-cranberry pie with oat streusel topping and a chocolate-pecan pie - were mediocre. Before that I made a lime-marshmallow meringue and a macadamia-banana cream. Eh-to-bleh. These caused me to question, what is the darn problem???

1. Can I truly not make good pies? Very possible.

2. Are these pies actually fine, and I just think they're bad because I don't like pie, and not know it? Maaaaybe.

3. Or have I just picked bad recipes? Over, and over and over? Possible, but frustrating.

The reason for this post, is that I have finally made A Great Pie. A really spectacular, honest-to-goodness, all-American, contest-winning pie. With a double crust. That I made myself. But I have other things I want to say about it, so I didn't want to burden that post with this preamble. It feels like a revelation, a miracle, a breakthrough. I CAN MAKE PIE!!! (Don't worry, it will be the next post. And it will be grrreat.)

So I suppose #3 must be correct. Because now I've proven I can make a good pie, though it is a very particular, tricky business. And I've also established that I DO like pie. I guess from now on I just need to be very, very discriminating in my recipes. And if they're dumb, not let them get me down. 'Cause I am a pie-maker.

And...I totally hated the book Life of Pi. Actually, it was really good until the ending, and then I hated it. Really, really hated it.

And. My dad and his engineering buddies at Cal Tech had a chant, which I learned very early in life:

Cosine! Secant! Hyperbolic sine!

3.14159!

Quite thought I was the bees' knees when I got to high school and learned what all those things meant. I remember my 7th grade math teacher scolding me for using five decimal places for pi - "3.14 is sufficient," she said. Sufficient, my butt. Obviously, her dad did not go to Cal Tech. And she is not getting any pie.

And. Someone should get me this. I would do it honor.