I like pie.
Lemon meringue, blueberry, cherry, chocolate cream, strawberry, apple, raspberry, rhubarb... Cheesecake. It's all wonderful. Pie makes me happy.
Until today, though, I've never really had a favorite pie – I love them all equally. Or I did. Today my favorite pie is apple pie. And once I've finished eating the apple pie that's in my fridge, I might have to give up eating pie for good, just because this pie is the best pie I've ever had, the best pie I ever expect to have. It is homemade, though I didn't make it, and I expect that anyone else in the world would taste it and say, “ok, it's decent pie, but it's definitely NOT the best pie ever.”
Which is fine. Everyone knows what opinions are like, and why.
Also, this particular apple pie tastes a bit like freezer – not surprising, seeing as how after it was prepared it was placed, un-baked, into a freezer 240 miles north of here an unknown number of years ago. Then it was partially thawed, transported, and re-frozen. And then forgotten until Friday, July 29th, the day our freezer died. I baked it yesterday (Wednesday, August 3rd!) after it sat thawing in the fridge.
You might think eww, that particular pie sounds like it's had almost no chance of being edible. Forget “the best pie ever”. That's what I thought.
But then I cut a slice for myself a little while ago and immediately had a pie-nostalgia-gasm.
This wasn't just any apple pie. The freezer from which it was transported had belonged to my Grammy in life, the apple pie the last one she'd ever make. I almost threw it out because of cooler-space considerations when we were deciding what was to go where after she passed, but my dad said to me, “you should take that. The last “Grandma's apple pie” on earth!”. Caving to the sentimental impulse, I did.
I encountered it every so often as I took this thing or that from the freezer, avoiding it because.... I don't know why, really. I'd become a little bit phobic about one single un-baked pie in an aluminum pie plate for no reason I could give. Or can give. Or will be able to give.
On that Friday – a week ago tomorrow – the pie was almost thrown away once again, but once again “the last “Grandma's apple pie” on earth” saved it. And I'm glad. The slice of pie came out of the pan in sixteen different pieces, a thing that always made Grammy nuts when it happened to her, and it made me smile to think of it. I sprayed it with aerosol whipped cream, the smell making me think of all the times I'd “helped” her to make pies like this one, she a patient angel with a tiny, distractable assistant. I took a bite and suddenly I was nine years old again, sitting at the kitchen counter with both of them, my Grammy and Grandpa. Her pie has cool whip. His has a slice of cheddar cheese. Mine has a scoop of vanilla ice cream. They're drinking coffee, I'm having milk, and the kitchen smells of warm apple pie, of the cardamom bread in the oven. Each bite of pie - freezer-flavored, undercooked pie - makes me remember something else, gives me the warm fuzzies.
I can't help but to think that my pie isn't going to last long enough.
Lemon meringue, blueberry, cherry, chocolate cream, strawberry, apple, raspberry, rhubarb... Cheesecake. It's all wonderful. Pie makes me happy.
Until today, though, I've never really had a favorite pie – I love them all equally. Or I did. Today my favorite pie is apple pie. And once I've finished eating the apple pie that's in my fridge, I might have to give up eating pie for good, just because this pie is the best pie I've ever had, the best pie I ever expect to have. It is homemade, though I didn't make it, and I expect that anyone else in the world would taste it and say, “ok, it's decent pie, but it's definitely NOT the best pie ever.”
Which is fine. Everyone knows what opinions are like, and why.
Also, this particular apple pie tastes a bit like freezer – not surprising, seeing as how after it was prepared it was placed, un-baked, into a freezer 240 miles north of here an unknown number of years ago. Then it was partially thawed, transported, and re-frozen. And then forgotten until Friday, July 29th, the day our freezer died. I baked it yesterday (Wednesday, August 3rd!) after it sat thawing in the fridge.
You might think eww, that particular pie sounds like it's had almost no chance of being edible. Forget “the best pie ever”. That's what I thought.
But then I cut a slice for myself a little while ago and immediately had a pie-nostalgia-gasm.
This wasn't just any apple pie. The freezer from which it was transported had belonged to my Grammy in life, the apple pie the last one she'd ever make. I almost threw it out because of cooler-space considerations when we were deciding what was to go where after she passed, but my dad said to me, “you should take that. The last “Grandma's apple pie” on earth!”. Caving to the sentimental impulse, I did.
I encountered it every so often as I took this thing or that from the freezer, avoiding it because.... I don't know why, really. I'd become a little bit phobic about one single un-baked pie in an aluminum pie plate for no reason I could give. Or can give. Or will be able to give.
On that Friday – a week ago tomorrow – the pie was almost thrown away once again, but once again “the last “Grandma's apple pie” on earth” saved it. And I'm glad. The slice of pie came out of the pan in sixteen different pieces, a thing that always made Grammy nuts when it happened to her, and it made me smile to think of it. I sprayed it with aerosol whipped cream, the smell making me think of all the times I'd “helped” her to make pies like this one, she a patient angel with a tiny, distractable assistant. I took a bite and suddenly I was nine years old again, sitting at the kitchen counter with both of them, my Grammy and Grandpa. Her pie has cool whip. His has a slice of cheddar cheese. Mine has a scoop of vanilla ice cream. They're drinking coffee, I'm having milk, and the kitchen smells of warm apple pie, of the cardamom bread in the oven. Each bite of pie - freezer-flavored, undercooked pie - makes me remember something else, gives me the warm fuzzies.
I can't help but to think that my pie isn't going to last long enough.
And it didn't.
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