Come On And Confront Those Fears!

   So here we are on All Hallows' Eve.  And I have to ask the question - What are you scared of?  I mean it is Halloween after all.  This is the day to confront your fears.  If you are slightly neurotic like me, your fears may be too huge to conquer in one day.  But you might as well take a shot!
   I gotta say, I am at a disadvantage here because the things I fear tend toward the grandiose.  I am afraid of the big ones like: death, losing someone close to me, not being happy, never falling in love again, falling in love with a man who can't love me back, and losing my sense of self.  Forget about the little fears, the tangible fears, the fears you can confront directly.  I don't think that I have to many of those. Although,  silverfish (those bugs with eight million legs that crawl out of the drain) are pretty damn scary.
   One of my best friends (and in many ways my soul sister), Michelle, has just returned from England where she was working on and FINISHED her Master's degree in Ethnobotany.  I mention Michelle here because she conquered her fear of  imperfection.  She finished her thesis and, turned that mother in even though she felt it was not perfect.  Not to mention the fact that she took a chance, moved to England (where she knew no one), and went to graduate school (in a field unknown to most) at an age (undisclosed) that is a few years past the average.  I might sound like a cornball here, but I am proud of her! 
   Another fear of mine (and I would hazard a guess - Michelle's), which is pertinent to this blog, is the fear of self-promotion.  I have always felt more than slightly uneasy when talking about my accomplishments.  Clearly, I am beginning to get over this fear.  I mean I am writing this blog about my life, my philosophy, my thoughts and pie.  Don't forget the pie.  Never forget the pie!
  As my best friend Wendy likes to say, "It's all about me."  I am pretty sure she is only half kidding when she says this.  In a way, she is right.  Even if we have family, children or others we love and care for (and let's hope we do), we must crack open that door of "selfishness" every once and a while.  Sometimes, it's got to be all about us.  And that is okay.

   Scared as You - The Cure

"So What'cha Want" ???

   Imagine... You are in your kitchen.  It is a lovely red kitchen with plenty of space.  It is a beautiful Autumnal day.  The sun is shining and the breeze is blowing leaves off of the trees.  Just imagine... You are making a pear pie with pears you purchased at the Farmer's Market.  You have already made the crust, filled the pie plate with glistening pear slices, sugar, flour, lemon zest, lemon juice, cinnamon and little bits of butter.  Imagine... That right now you are cutting dough for the lattice.  Okay.  Now here is the question?  What is your background music?
   My answer this morning was the  "Beastie Boys".  During the entire pie making process "The Sounds of Science" was playing in my kitchen.  I found myself thinking, "This is some good stuff. And actually works pretty well as kitchen music."  It was kinda a trip - me using a fluted pastry wheel, cutting strips for the lattice top, listening to "Brass Monkey" in the background.
   Now, I am going to tell you a little secret (which is probably only a secret to a few).  I know virtually nothing about hip-hop.  My tastes tend to lean more towards alternative, indie or folk music.  You can throw a little punk and trip-hop in there too.  If we are talking hip-hop, I got nothing (or pretty close).   In my mind's eye, I have never thought of anything close to hip-hop working as good kitchen music.  But, this morning proved me wrong.
   Not that I am going to become true hip-hop believer.  I can barely wrap my head around the simplest lingo.  You will probably never see me all blinged out.  And the goth girl in me still prefers music that makes me want to cry or kill someone.  But hip-hop has a place - even in my kitchen.

An Easy Bake Oven For All Ages!

blackberry-chocolate pielets

   So, I went into Williams-Sonoma (my part time job) on Friday for my shift.   Surprise!  We got in an electric personal pie maker manufactured by Breville.  Well I can tell you this, I now own the "Personal Pie" manufactured by Breville.  It is an amazing little machine that makes four four-inch pielets in under fifteen minutes.  Of course, that's assuming you are using store bought pie dough (not!) and that you don't fuss around with everything (Who me? never!).  

   I managed to hold off on taking this little beauty on a test drive for a whole day.  For those of you who know me well, this probably comes as a shock.  I know!  I know!  The days of purchasing an entire new bedding set (including curtains and rugs) from Ikea in Pittsburgh, driving home in the middle of the night, and staying up until 4am to put it all together are gone!  I guess this means I am growing up. 

    So far, I have made blackberry, banana-chocolate and blackberry-chocolate pielets.  But just imagine the possibilities: little pot pies, little quiches, and little tarts!  You know, this sounds a lot like the Easy Bake Oven.  Except, there is no light bulb just waiting to burn you when you pull out your tiny chocolate cake.  That was the seventies.  Most people didn't even know where their kids were much less protect them from a potentially deadly toy.

   Remember what I said about growing up?  I just purchased the culinary equivalent of the Easy Bake Oven!  Back in the day, I was super excited to make my own teeny chocolate cake in a toy that could set me on fire.  Today, I am totally psyched to make diminutive pies in an electric that could set my house on fire.

   Some things never change.  Or maybe they change so slowly you never notice them.  Or maybe they change enough that you come full circle a few times during your lifetime.  I don't know.  It's something to ponder while making fabulously cute and delicious pies in my "Personal Pie" machine.

   Easy Bake Oven Commercial -1972. Hilarous!

   PS:  Talk of dangerous kitchen electrics reminds me of my favorite television show ever,  "Arrested Development".  The clip below is from the episode that introduces the "Cornballer".  So, so funny!

   Michael, George Michael and the Cornballer

  

  

  

Bring on the Monsters!

   In honor of Halloween, I made a monster pie (vanilla cream in a chocolate crust and drizzled with chocolate).  Did I mention that is was a scary shade of green?  This color can only be achieved by using the ENTIRE little tube of green food coloring.  I took this pie to my friend Amy's for dinner.  After an enlightening dinner conversation about fruit, vegetables and green/blue food (the highlight of which was when Wendy pronounced, "Celery is a silent killer.")  we partook of the monster pie.  It was very tasty but served up like vanilla pudding due to a small problem with the set up process.  Looking at it in the bowl (bowl - enough said!) I was reminded of the scene from "Better Off Dead" in which questionable green food moved across a plate.
   It has been a week full of monsters.  My day job (for those who are not aware) is teaching pre-kindergarten.  This is usually a pretty fun gig and this week was no exception.  The class put on a play called "Monsters Rock Out" with the help of my co-teacher (Ms. Tina) and our music teacher (Mr. Chuck).  Tina thought we (the adults) should dress up as monsters as well.  This is how I came to be Edward Scissorhands. 
   A week full of oozy green pie, Edward Scissorhands, Halloween music and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (my favorite) makes me love Halloween even more.   Mr. Chuck jokingly said that Edward Scissorhands fits my goth persona.  Really I think I am about as goth as fuzzy kittens or pink bunnies. But I do wear a lot of black. I do wear Converse.  I do listen to broody music.  I do write poetry.  I do love Tim Burton films.  I do make scary slime colored pies. 
  Maybe, just maybe, there is a goth princess lurking inside me.  And soon she will hatch her nefarious plan to take over the world - one pie at a time.  

"Pie is home. People always come home."

Nectarine-Raspberry Pinwheel

   Today while I was driving home from the last (big sigh) sailing outing of the year, "Impossible Germany" by Wilco came on my ipod shuffle.  Even though I am not sure what exactly is going on in that song, it struck me as the right song at the right time.  That, in my opinion, is the best thing about listening to music.  Get the right song at the right moment and the whole world around becomes fuzzy and distant.
   We all need things in our lives that help transport us into the now, whether it is music, poetry, baking (my favorites) or something else.  You have to find it and own it.  Even if you feel like the biggest nerd walking on the planet 'cause you are interested in something crazy-goofy, you got to own it.  The reality is that everyone is crazy in their own special way.  Some people are just much better at hiding their own brand of insanity.
   What, you say, does this have to do with making pie?  I will tell you: the right pie at the right moment is perfection.  Actually, that is true for all food.  And especially if you share food that you make with others.  I mean, I have been making enough pie that I need to share it.  Otherwise, I could end looking like the blueberry girl in "Willie Wonka".
   Let me share a little secret though - I love giving pie to friends, it makes me happy.  As Ned said on "Pushing Daisies", "Candy might be sweet, but it's a traveling carnival blowing through town. Pie is home. People always come home."

    Take a listen - Impossible Germany

You have been PIED!

   So this week in my pie world, I experimented with a new filling flavor that I call - Nutella Cinnamon Cream or Lazy Girl's Chocolate.  Either name works for me, as I was feeling sloth-like and just grabbed the Nutella I had in the cabinet rather than getting in the car or (gasp) walking a few blocks to the Community Market.  Juliet tells us, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.", and that's the philosophy I am sticking to when it comes to Lazy Girl's Chocolate.  It's pretty damn good with any name.
   Another fantabulous thing happened this week.  I was commissioned to make a pie.  This is a super big deal.  It means that someone has eaten my pie, not gotten sick after, and actually loved it enough to pay for another.  Considering that up until now I have been forcing virtually everyone I know to take pie home with them, I was psyched to see a little green make it's way into my hand.
   So I made a beautiful apple pie, put it in a cute polka dot box, and made an adorable little tag which said, "You have Been Pied! by Eye on the Pie".  How much fun was that?  A lot!
   




   

Too much pie? Is there such a thing?

lemon ice-box pie

   At dinner this evening with friends, the subject of the cherpumple occupied a good portion of the conversation.  Have you heard of the cherpumple?  Well if you haven't you are missing out on one of the kookiest sweet treats ever.  It is a three layered cake with a pre-cooked pie submerged in each layer.  Then the whole thing is smothered in cream cheese icing.  For specifics on each cake layer, pie type and other fine details watch the link I have included below.  It is something to see.  And it may be something to make.  Someday, when I am feeling a little more unstable than usual, I may just have to take it for a spin.  Don't be surprised (for those who live near me) if you wake up one morning, open your front door and find a ginormous cake on your doorstep.  As my friend Amy said, "Make sure to lift with your legs."
   Today's fare was of a more standard variety.  I made a lemon ice-box pie.  This pie will kill you.  The main two ingredients are cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk.  And if that is not enough for you, the crust is made with graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter.  As pie making goes, it was fairly easy to make: no rolling out of pie crust, no peeling of fruit, in fact no baking at all.  Just remember to have your defibrillator handy when you indulge.
    I managed to feed half of the lemon ice-box pie to my girlfriends after a lovely Italian dinner.  Although it was touch and go for a while because several stops were made by my friends earlier in the day yielding brownies and cupcakes.  I thought for a moment, they were going to decline the pie.  What the hell was I gonna do with a whole lemon pie?  As it stands now, the other half is safely in the freezer.  But what am I going to do with the apple pie (that I baked yesterday)?
   Remember what I said about finding the cherpumple on your stoop.  I wasn't kidding.  And it could be sooner rather than later.  Just maybe not cherpumple - but good old fashioned pie!

The Cherpumple: Something to aspire to

Winesap, Macintosh, and Jonagold...OH MY!

the leaky beauty

   Today was the perfect day for making apple pie.  It was a chilly, drizzly day in Ohio.  Today, I was just fine with having the stove set at 425 degrees.  It was a busy day in my kitchen.  I made two apple pies and five apple pielets.  The first pie looked a little crazy and reminded me of that saying "a face only a mother could love".  The second pie was beautiful but during the cooking process it managed to spill some of the loveliness all over the bottom of the stove.  Climbing on top of a chair to poke at the smoke alarm always adds a little bit of excitement to my kitchen adventures.
   Yesterday I went with Wendy to her  CSA's  end of the season farm day.  That was a good time and it was there that I scored the apples for the pies.  I grew up with seven or eight apple trees in my yard which was really cool.  As a child, my job was to pick up most of the fallen apples.  Even though I got paid for these tasks (usually with an addition of a new toy), it was rather daunting.  Sometimes Wendy would get roped into this child-labor scheme my mother had going.  Nothing like working your ten year old fingers to the bone for a Skipper barbie doll.  I did learn a few lessons from all of this apple picking.  The first being that there are all different kinds of apples out there.  The second being that different apples have different qualities.  This seemed pretty self explanatory, but became perfectly clear when I accidentally stepped on them during the clean up process.
   This wealth of information that I gained as a child did not prepare me for choosing apples for the pies.  Let me just say, I had not done my research.  So here I was standing in front of box after box of different varieties of apples without a clue.  A few names I recognized: Winesap, Macintosh and Jonagold.  After a few minutes I figured - what the hell, these are all locally grown and fresh from the farm, they are going to be about a thousand times better than store bought apples anyway.  So I just picked a bag full that looked good to me. 
   These apples went into two full sized pies and five pielets.  As far as I can tell, the random apple combination worked out well.  I have so much pie I have to give it away.  There is nothing like becoming a pie maker after you have decided to reduce your size a little.  Kinda a cruel joke I am playing on myself.  But then, I have always been intrigued by pseudo-masochism.

the apples

 

 

 

Practice Makes Better

   A few months ago, I rediscovered the Bon Iver album For Emma, Forever Ago which I had loaded on my computer/ipod but had never listened to in its entirety.  Finally, I listened to it from beginning to end and was absolutely astounded by the painful yet beautiful journey that is the album.  And to think, I almost missed it by only playing songs that pop up on my shuffle rather than albums as they were intended.  It kinda made me yearn for the days when I would drop a record on a turntable and listen to whole thing over and over again. 
   For me, baking from scratch offers the same type of reward.  I actually quite enjoy the process of making pie dough even though at times it seems like a mine field.  When you consider how much can go wrong with four or five ingredients, it is astounding.  Since I am fairly new to pie making, I take every bit of advice I can get.
   At the King Arthur Flour Co. demo today, I learned some very interesting tidbits:

•       A cup of compacted flour directly from the bag weighs quite a bit more than the standard weight used for a cup of flour.  Therefore, you should fluff your flour before measuring and sprinkle into the cup measure rather than scoop it up with the cup.  This should give you a fairly accurate cup/weight measurement. (Who knew? Not me!)
•       A stick of salted butter contains 1/4 tsp of salt.  Most pie dough recipes call for unsalted butter.  You can use salted butter with no problem if you adjust the salt added to the dough. (Alas, working with fractions is required.)
•       When your dough starts to snap back during the rolling out process you need to stop.  Otherwise your pie dough will get tougher and tougher. (Been there, done that.)

   During the demonstration, the pastry chef shared something his master said to him when he was an apprentice: "Practice makes better."  He explained the goal was to improve your technique through practice rather than aim for unattainable perfection.
   It's just like listening to one of your favorite albums or making pie dough over and over.  It will never be a perfect experience, but you will learn something new every time.  If you are paying attention...

Pay attention.

Live version of Re:Stacks. Last track on For Emma, Forever Ago