wet, salty and dry, all at once-
oh, well it's pie.
Apple and pumpkin and mince and black bottom,
I'll come to your place every day if you've got em.
Pie, me oh my, I love pie!
My friend Songbird posted the questions for this week's Friday Five on the RevGalBlogPals and it's all about pie. She was having some pie dilemmas at her house related to gluten and a lack of piecrust at her local Trader Joe's. People across the country offered to make crust for her and one good soul actually delivered a pie to her door. (I may try this strategy for scoring pie next year!) Without further ado, here are Songbird's questions and my answers related to pie.
- Are pies an important part of a holiday meal? Well, yes they are! And in the home of my childhood, it was all about the pie, but not the pie you are imagining. In the days before food processors, we would ask my mom to make Cornish pasty for any and every holiday meal. It involved making six pie crusts, peeling and grating potatoes and grinding rutabegas and onions in an old fashioned meat grinder. Nowadays, making pasty is a lot easier, but it is still my idea of THE holiday meal. Sadly, the Bugman and the Chick think that Thanksgiving means turkey, Easter means ham and Christmas should be about beef and seafood. I usually manage to sneak in some pasty before the holiday weekend is over. As you can see from the picture, pasty is like a big turnover filled with ground beef, potatoes, rutabegas or carrots and a little onion. The recipe came from my mother's Aunt Effie who lived in mining country in northern Minnesota. Some crazy people think it needs gravy. Personally, I have found butter is the ONLY way to go! Oh! just to clarify my family's dedication to pie, when we were done with the pasty, I was asked for many years to bake Black Bottom Pie for dessert.
- Men prefer pie; women prefer cake. Discuss. Cake baking is easier. Discuss.
- Cherries--do they belong in a pie? I don't like cherries but the husband dreams of such things.
- Meringue--if you have to choose, is it best on lemon or chocolate? Skip the meringue altogether. The Chick's favorite pie is French Silk Chocolate. (See top photo.) Notice there is NO meringue. We are all about the whipped cream at our house.
- In a chicken pie, what are the most compatible vegetables? Anything you don't like to find in a chicken pie? Peas are nasty. I don't much like the cooked carrots either. I once made a chicken pie with potatoes, a little onion, lots of mushrooms and curry in the sauce. It was good! I might have to try that again.
