Sometimes Tuesday rolls around and . . . there’s nothing to really blog about. So, with not much to say, I’ll show you a picture of the saffron buns I made on Sunday in honor of St. Lucia Day in Sweden. And I’ll link to my favorite recipe for them so that next year when I go to make them again I’ll remember that this is the one I prefer.
They were yummy.
Happy Tuesday.
The decision has been made with regards to pie. There will be 3. And they will be full sized. As cute as those little pies are I worry that they will be . . . fussy to make and more challenging than just following my usual pie formula. So, later today I will make 2 sets of pie dough instead of my usual 5. And tomorrow I will make a pumpkin, a mincemeat, and a cranberry pecan. In the spirit of pie, I found this poem to share with you. I think the title couldn’t be more appropriate because pie = perfection!
1.
Pies have a reputation.
And it’s immediate—no talk of potential
Regarding a pie. It’s good
Or it isn’t, but mostly it is—sweet, very sweet
Right then, right there, blue and red.
It can’t go to junior college,
Work hard for the grades,
Work two jobs on the side.
It can’t slowly build a reputation
And a growing client base.
A pie gets one chance
And knows it, wearing as makeup
Those sparkling granules of sugar,
As a collar those diamond cutouts
Bespeaking Fair Day, felicity, contentment.
I tell you everything is great, says a pie,
Great, and fun, and fine.
And you smell nice, too, someone says.
A full pound of round sound, all ahh, all good.
Pies live a life of applause.
2.
But then there are the other pies.
The leftover pies. The ones
Nobody chooses at Thanksgiving.
Mincemeat? What the hell is that? people ask,
Pointing instead at a double helping of Mr.
“I-can-do-no-wrong” pecan pie.
But the unchosen pies have a long history, too.
They have plenty of good stories, places they’ve been—
They were once fun, too—
But nobody wants to listen to them anymore.
Oh sure, everybody used to love lard,
But things have changed, brother—things have changed.
That’s never the end of the story, of course.
Some pies make a break for it—
Live underground for a while,
Doing what they can, talking fast,
Trying to be sweet pizzas, if they’re lucky.
But no good comes of it. Nobody is fooled.
A pie is a pie for one great day. Last week,
It was Jell-O. Tomorrow, it’ll be cake.
Originally published in The Dangerous Shirt (Copper Canyon Press, 2009). Copyright © by Alberto Ríos.
I didn’t plan on writing a separate post about what we ate while we enjoyed The Oscars but since a few of you asked . . . and since I’m always down to talk about food . . . here goes.
Generally, I try to find something to eat to represent each of the Best Picture nominees. So here’s the list of nominees, followed by what we came up with to eat.
Ford v. Ferrari: Hannah brought tacos. She said there was a scene in a restaurant where they were eating them. I don’t recall it but I’m always up for eating tacos.
The Irishman: I marinated and cooked a sirloin steak (this one did double duty, as you’ll see below) and we also had ice cream. The tie in is that Frank Sheeran (the main character) delivers (errr, illegally sells) beef in the beginning of the movie and Jimmy Hoffa is an ice cream fiend.
JoJo Rabbit: red wine. Listen. We were going to be drinking wine anyway but there’s a scene where Scarlet Johansson drinks red wine to celebrate that the allies are getting closer.
Joker: Homemade soft pretzels. This one is a stretch but when I googled to try and come up with something for this movie I read that while Joaquin Phoenix was dieting to lose the weight for this role he craved pretzels.
Little Women: Apples, bread (made by Sean and it was fab), and cheese, pictured above. A staple during that time and Louisa May Alcott reportedly loved apples.
Marriage Story: Kale salad because Laura Dern’s character orders a kale salad when they go to their lunch meeting with the attorneys. I didn’t end up serving this because we were full but I was prepared nevertheless.
1917: I made a Wacky Cake, which is a war time recipe for cake that doesn’t use milk or eggs. This one is also a stretch since Wacky Cake’s roots are in WWII not WWI. Still. It’s wartime and we needed dessert.
Once Upon A Time . . . In Hollywood: Onion dip and potato chips. What’s a more quintessential snack from the late 1960s than that?
Parasite: I said the sirloin steak did double duty and I meant it because it, along with ramen noodles from our local sushi place, counted for Parasite for the Jjapaguri Ram-don that plays such an important role in a very tense scene. And yes, I know that ramen from a Japanese restaurant is not the same as the Korean noodle dish that is featured but it’s what we had available. And it was delicious!
I completely spaced out on taking photos and only captured the onion dip from yesterday and the cheese board from today’s post. Believe me when I say that everything was delicious even if it wasn’t photographed. Planning this menu is always a fun part of the experience for Hannah and I and this year was no exception. You know us . . . we always eat well!
(Please check in with Bonny today as she is hosting our 2nd discussion on the book Fever. Remember that every comment earns you an entry in our prize offering.)
I uploaded this photo to Instagram and Facebook yesterday.
It’s my Pie Plan for 2019 and I’m happy to say it’s on track. Of course, that only means I made 4 batches of pie crusts yesterday but still . . . I’m feeling organized and ready to go when I get home from work later today.
Four batches of pie crust at once might sound intimidating but it really only took about 45 minutes from start to finish . . . start being getting out my ingredients and finish being all cleaned up and ready to move on. Here’s my pie crust recipe if you need a refresher. It’s easy and pretty fool proof and I encourage you to just give it a try.
Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have a counter that looks similar to this once again:
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Yesterday was Mother’s Day and I saw a lot of stuff on social media about it. I saw pictures of moms with their kids. I saw gifts that moms received. I saw brunch celebrations and bouquets of flowers. I read some beautiful words about celebrating moms, remembering moms, honoring the women in our lives who aren’t our moms but who inspire us and raise us up. It was all pretty wonderful and made what can be a bittersweet day for me quite tolerable.
You know what else made it a bomb Mother’s Day?
Teaching my girlie Hannah to bake an apple pie.
To be perfectly honest, I was not excited about baking a pie on Mother’s Day. It’s . . . work. There’s the crust and the peeling and slicing of the apples. There’s the mess and clean up and timing of it all. But I did it gladly. I did it because Hannah asked me if I would. Because Hannah thought this would be a great way of spending time together on Mother’s Day. Because it was a way of remembering and honoring my mom, teaching her granddaughter how to do this thing that she taught me to do when I was about Hannah’s age. Because Hannah sees me as an expert when it comes to baking pie and because she knows I learned from my mom and she wants to be the third generation of women in our family who make really great pie for the people they love.
Because, despite my reluctance to do anything even remotely like work on Mother’s Day, I love my daughter. And it’s the love that makes all the work and mess and time worth the effort.
And maybe also because we got to have a really great pie for dessert. My daughter’s first pie. I’m a proud mommy.
I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday celebrating the moms in your life. And I hope it included pie.