As Easy As Pie

What's Thanksgiving without pie?

In my house, apple pie is an essential part of the feast. Store-bought pie is not allowed. Ever. Once (but NOT on Thanksgiving), I allowed myself to buy a pre-made pie crust as a time-saving measure. I think I made a quiche for a group of women who came over for lunch, suspecting they wouldn't notice the difference. I, on the other hand, was appalled. The crust tasted how a shopping warehouse smells and feels: like oily plastic with an undercurrent of despair.

I protest too much. But I do have a deep-seated psychological reason for turning up my nose at anything other than buttery handmade pie crust. It all started when I was a child ...

My stepfather had been a baker in the U.S. Navy, serving on a destroyer in the Pacific during World War II. He used to joke that he did battle with stale biscuits, lobbing them at the enemy when the ship came under fire. His best story though, and actually believable, was the one about the fruit cocktail pies he was ordered to make one day when they'd run out of conventional pie filling.

My stepfather refused to open the industrial-size cans of fruit cocktail and pour them into his tender flaky crusts. In his book, this was blasphemy. He was ordered to make the offending pies or be disciplined. He stuck to his guns (biscuits?) and accepted his punishment, which he claimed included a loss of rank.

Every year at Thanksgiving, my stepfather would whip up several pies and tell the tale about nearly being court martialed for his refusal to bake fruit cocktail pie. This is where my sky-high pie standards come from. My stepfather also taught me the few tricks you need to know about making pie crust. It really is quite simple.

A quick internet search reveals that fruit cocktail pie isn't the sacrilege my stepfather thought it to be, at least not if you believe in Cool Whip and other petrochemical food products. Times change. But not when it comes to pie. Not in my house.

Have a happy, pie-filled Thanksgiving!

Knitting Under the Influence

It was a bitterly cold weekend, and we made much use of our fireplace. Now that I've started a knitting project, fireside stitching is a key element in the warm cozy tableau.

My husband spins the tunes (yes, we have a turntable, which makes us dinosaurs or accidently hip, depending upon your perspective), pours the wine and tends the fire. His musical tastes are fairly eclectic, a little heavy on jazz. He also loves music from the early '60's and Broadway musicals, but usually refrains from playing these genres in my presence. I would rather see a periodontist than sit through The Impossible Dream.

On Friday night, I sat knitting in front of the fire, barely noticing the music that was playing in the background. I'm knitting a basketweave-pattern vest, and it requires a fair amount of concentration not to go off-kilter.

Suddenly, I realized I had no idea where I was in my knitting. Was it the music making me jumpy and a little feverish? I listened as a saxophone knit together a hodgepodge of elements some might call melodies. To my untrained ear it sounded like a cat fight. A glance at my knitting needles revealed that what had begun as a sweater vest was morphing into a sock.

What is this music? I asked. The Lighter Side of John Coltrane, he answered, chuckling because even Coltrane's "light" veers off into jangly improvisations that can set your teeth on edge, provoking rather than soothing the savage breast. Coltrane is not conducive to knitting.

As Sunrise, Sunset wafted out of the speakers and filled the room with a warm glow, I got got my knitting back on key. I thought about Yeats poem "When You are Old."

That's when I put the knitting away and asked for a martini. Bring back the Coltrane.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

My daughter got into the college of her choice the conventional way. She worked hard in high school, visited colleges of interest, applied and was accepted. All I had to do was buy envelopes and stamps and make a run to the post office. Easy.

It appears I'll have to do more than buy postal supplies for my son's application process. Apparently, I'll have to make dinner for visiting coaches.

Yesterday, the coach at Mark's top-choice school sent an email saying he'd like to come and chat with us. It's a three-hour drive, and he'll be arriving around 4 or 5 pm. Naturally I'll ask him to stay for dinner.

Do coaches make home visits to uncover signs of family dysfunction?

You can tell I'm new to this recruiting thing. Many parents would have hired a consultant to handle the process, but since we are of the low-key minor parental involvement school of thought, we've been letting Mark handle it himself. I'm guessing the coach is coming because he's really interested in Mark and is going to support his application. Naturally we're all excited, but the question of what to make for dinner looms large.

Should it be something casual and fun like tacos? How about something on the grill? My son Harry suggested meat loaf due to it's all-American comfort-food status. Mark, who's indifferent to food, could care less what I serve. He's more concerned about potential parental faux pas's than anything else.

I have plenty of time to think about the menu. More pressing is the menu for Thanksgiving.

Do you think the coach will like Turkey Surprise?

Comfort Food

The frost would be on the pumpkin if there were any growing in my yard or decorating my doorstep. It's cold outside, and when it's cold, my thoughts turn to rib-sticking comfort food like meaty stews and hearty soups. My son Mark is a vegetarian, so I also look for non-meat dishes that will make everyone happy.

Last night, I made vegetarian chili for dinner. Food purists would say it doesn't deserve to be called chili (chili powder is the only "pepper" in it and there's no meat) but I say fie on them. I use a recipe I adapted from a cookbook called Laurel's Kitchen called "Chili con Elote."

Elote means corn in Spanish. Actually, it means corn on the cob, but let's not get technical. There's a famous restaurant in La Garita, Costa Rica devoted to all things corn, Fiesta de Maize. We went there once on the way home from a beach trip. The food wasn't very good, but it was an interesting restaurant concept.

Note: I do not like onions and so banish them from most recipes unless I think I can get away with shallots OR the onions end up being pureed and therefore unrecognizable. My family, however, loves onions, so I usually chop up a bunch and include them with the other condiments on the table.

Ingredients
1 tbsp. oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1-2 cups of tomato sauce
15 oz. can of corn
19 oz. can black beans (about 2 cups)
19 oz. can red kidney beans (about 2 cups)
1 tsp. cumin
chili powder to taste
fresh cilantro, chopped

Saute garlic (and chopped onion if desired) until soft, then add cumin and chili powder. Add approx. 1/3 of the black and red beans to the pan and mash them up into the spices with a potato masher. It will look like refried beans. Add remaining beans, the corn and the tomato sauce. The amount of sauce you use will depend on how thick you want the chili to be.

Simmer for 30 minutes, adding chopped cilantro 5 minutes before cooking ends. Add salt to taste. The chili may be served with the following: grated cheddar cheese, chopped onions, tabasco sauce. Fresh-baked Corn bread is an excellent accompaniment.

Serves 3-4.

The virtuous among you may wish to use dried beans (soaked and cooked). Fresh chilis or other hot peppers may be sauteed along with garlic/onions.

Buen provecho!

Toaster Oven Blues

I'm not much of a shopper. I'm more of a grab-it-off-the-shelf-and-flee consumer. Comparing prices gives me a headache.

My husband recently purchased a rug cleaner to keep up with the urological issues of our aging dogs. He spent a week researching products, and kept posing questions about built-in rug beaters versus fast-dry features. He was getting pleasure out of buying the cleaner; I was tortured by his "research." Just buy the damn thing. And start cleaning.

This weekend, I decided it was time to buy a new toaster oven. I went to Target with an attitude. I am angry at toaster ovens. They've driven me to the brink of despair. For some reason, toaster ovens don't last long at my house. We've gone through four of them in six and a half years. Just as the baked-on grease is threatening to become a fire hazard, the heating element goes. Could this be a failsafe mechanism? My kids bought my husband a plain old toaster for Fathers Day two years ago because he just couldn't get his bagels to toast right in the oven du jour. This was a lovely idea but a serious drain on counter space. I still needed the oven for on-the-fly heating.

When I saw the "Toastation" it was love at first sight. It was really compact and not too ugly, but the best part about the appliance was that it cleverly combined a small oven and a traditional pop-up toaster in one unit. Plus, it was half the size of my current behemoth, which has been on the fritz for months. Truthfully, I would have paid anything for this marvel. I was therefore devastated to learn that the product was sold out. See, that's what I hate about shopping. You find the perfect item, and then wham! It doesn't fit; it has a hole in it; it's on back order. What's the use? I left Target with a turkey baster as a consolation prize.

My husband convinced me that we should just go to Walmart and buy the cheapest toaster oven they carried. We'd be tossing it in a year or so anyway, so we might as well go for low-cost dreck.

Walmart had plenty of Toastations, and at a higher price than Target! We bought one, and I'm happy to say it's still working. I retired the regular toaster and joyfully dumped the old oven into the trash.

Counter space is mine!

When Autumn Leaves

When Autumn leaves, I'll be happy. Right now we're knee-deep in oak leaves and raking seems hopeless. Maybe they'll all blow away, get sucked up into a passing cyclonic spout and spew forth somewhere else.

My diminutive ornamentals, mothers day gifts from my sons, are more manageable. Small trees leave small messes. That's a weeping birch on the left. I used to be frightened by birch trees when I was very young. I thought their dark eyes were staring at me. Birches don't naturally weep. This one was trained to, and I'm guessing it was painful. Birches look especially good surrounded by snow. That's when they look at you and try to make you feel guilty that they're cold and alone.


The Japanese maple at right has just burst into flames. The variety is "bloodgood" and who doesn't want good blood? The fingery leaves drip drip drip onto the ground, a crimsom pool staining the dull brown carpet.

We're in the thick of autumn now. Save for the maple tree, color has peaked and blah is the dominant palette. It's still fairly warm, so it's pleasant to go outside and rake for an hour or so. It's good exercise and you're steeped in nature's beauty. That makes up for the futility of the task.

Block That Apostrophe!

I've never been a strict grammarian. When I was in college, my boyfriend used to type all my papers (reader, I married him!), adding lots of commas, mostly needed. We would wrangle over a few grammatical points, such as the serial versus the Oxford comma, but mostly I was happy to have someone else do the heavy lifting.

It was my husband who first noticed the apostrophe apostasy on the plaque Mark received for winning the New England Championship on Saturday. It states:

CROSS COUNTRY BOY'S CHAMPION 2008

Our niece Rebecca, who was visiting for the weekend, and who teaches in the English department at Cornell College, immediately questioned the errant punctuation mark. Mark left the room during the discussion, thrilled to be a member of a family that critiques plaque copy. Several months ago, he had to listen to his parents go on about an egregious error on Harvard's athletic recruitment questionnaire, which asked for your coaches phone number. Horrors!

Personally, I'd leave out the plaque's apostrophe altogether because it doesn't add anything meaning-wise. As a former copywriter, I find excessive typography distracting and inelegant.

Is anyone still reading?

The Family Legs Redux

When I was pregnant with my son Mark I was summoned to have an ultrasound at 23 weeks because it was felt that his head was perhaps larger than normal. Turns out that all of him was larger than average, so there was nothing to worry about. His femur, they assured me, was quite long. "He'll be a basketball player for sure," one technician said.

Eighteen years later Mark measures around 6'3", and like a young horse, is all leg. He doesn't play basketball, though, he runs. Running runs in my family, but distantly. Last month Mark competed at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, following in the footsteps of his great great grandfather, his great grandfather and his uncle (my brother). Last weekend, Mark placed second in the Rhode Island State Meet with a PR of 15:42.

The New England Cross Country Championships was run today in Manchester, NH. Mark was hoping to finish in the top three. He was in 7th place some 100 meters before race end.

One by one, he picked off the competitors in front of him. Just before the finish line, he cruised by the guy who beat him last week at the State meet, winning the race by .9 seconds. Those long legs carried him to victory.

The experience for me was surreal, those final seconds passing in what seemed to be slow motion. Was I dreaming?

Mark's enjoying the glory, his head somewhat larger than normal tonight.

Tomorrow it's back to college applications.

Overcome

The joy unleashed last night when Barack Obama was declared the 44th President of the United States was something to see. It was a squeaker, but even my staunchly Republican town voted for a chance to overcome the damage of the Bush years, wallets be damned.

I watched Jesse Jackson weeping, overcome by the historical moment he was witnessing.

As I was drifting off to a short but peaceful sleep, I thought about my mother's tiny part in the history made last night. The year was 1961, the place Montgomery, Alabama. Shocked and outraged by the the Whites/Coloreds Only signs she saw on her first visit to the Deep South, my mother deliberately drank from a "Coloreds Only" water fountain one day, refusing to stop even when a police officer tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the sign above. My father had to drag her away, fearing the officer would act on his threat to arrest her. She was proud of this moment, her act of rebellion, and even though she changed nothing in Alabama, she had a story to tell her five children, a story that perfectly illustrated how racial discrimination was hateful and cowardly, something to oppose, reject, and one day, eliminate.

Mom, you would have loved this moment. Your children lived to see it , and your children's children don't even understand what the big deal is. To them, the Civil Rights Era is just another chapter in their U.S. History book.

Change has come, and not a moment too soon.

May we continue to overcome.