Pie

I had to chuckle today when Sam announced to me that pie was back “in” again. He had just looked over the new Journey magazine (published by AAA) that arrived today, and since I was engaged in making a pie for dinner, he felt it was a relevant topic. That pie had ever been “out“ was news to me, but then not being much of a Mainstream type, I don’t keep up on such things.

Pie, as an after dinner dessert or mid-day snack, has always been more popular in my family than cake. In fact, if you took a poll, I’m quite certain most of my relatives would vote for pie by an overwhelming margin, especially the men.

I was fortunate to learn the art of pie baking from a master: my Grandma Rose. When she was yet an unmarried girl, she came out West with her sister Estyle, who had just gotten married and moved to Oregon with her new husband Carl. Carl had gotten a job with the railroad, and so Rose came along with them. She had to earn a living though, and she did it by baking pies. Once she worked as a cook for a rooming house, and the rest of the time she worked as a pie baker at restaurants. After meeting and marrying my Grandfather Lloyd, she continued cooking for him, plus all the cowboys and hired hands at his ranch until they had to sell it and move to town. Then she just cooked for her family and friends, and when I was a little girl, she taught me most of what I know about cooking. Grandma didn’t make a great variety of pies, but those she did were memorable. She never cared much for cream pies, but all manner of fruit pies, pumpkin, and mincemeat pies were her stock in trade, and she was a particular master of lemon meringue.

Sam’s Dad Herb loved lemon meringue pies, too, so I resolved to make one from scratch once when we had invited them over to our new house for dinner. We had just bought a lovely little turn of the century farmhouse, so serving a lemon meringue pie for dessert was to be the piece de resistance. Of course I had never made a lemon meringue pie before, but how hard could it be? As it turned out, more difficult than I thought, and to make a long story short, the pie LOOKED great, but the lemon filling had not set up, so we had lemon soup for dessert! I was mortified. Everyone was very kind, however, and I survived.

As soon as everyone left, I called Grandma in tears, explaining what had happened, and I will never forget her words when I asked her secret to making lemon meringue pie. She replied, “I always use lemon pudding and pie filling—I never make them from scratch.” You could have knocked me over with a feather, I was so shocked.

That was many years ago, and I’ve made lots of lemon meringue pies since—and yes, I always use lemon pudding and pie filling too. Tonight, however, we’re having apple pie, which is by far much easier to make!