Pies @ MindSay

And continuing on from entry 32 - here is the scene from Stand By Me that inspired the section below from chapter 42 of Fire Of Glory.

 

I only realised today that I'm the one playing the FoG role of Lard Ass.

Tee hee... Oh well. :)

 

 

"Okay, you all know the rules. This is a NU-NH contest, no hands or forks allowed - 'kay?"

He took out a whistle. "Oh my mark..."

"Three... Two... One..." He blew it hard, and everyone set off.

SPLAT! LuigiGirl buried her face into the pie below her.

Everyone else did likewise, forgetting all possible table-manners, munching like pigs that’d just finished dieting.

Dixie was the first to finish hers first. "Done!" She called, and a Koopa threw another pie down onto the table in front of her.

"Done!" Andrew called, only seconds after Dixie.

"Done!" LuigiGirl called afterwards, as another pie was set in front of her.

A few moments later, everyone was onto their third pies, their faces covered with thick berry-filling.

"Good, huh?" Dixie asked, in-between mouthfuls.

"Nothin' better!" LuigiGirl exclaimed.

"Done!" Dixie announced, onto her fourth.

Andrew glared at her, plunging his face right into the centre of his pie, almost swallowing the whole contents of the dish in one go. "Done!"

"Done!" LuigiGirl called afterwards.

The contest ran steady for the next several minutes, Dixie leading with nine pies, Andrew on seven, LuigiGirl on six, Mack, Donovan, Edward and Zed on five.

"Take it easy Dixie!" Koopinator warned.

"Done!" LuigiGirl called. "He's right, take it easy, eh?" She said, before yet another pie was set in front of her.

Dixie ignored them both. "Done!" She yelled, before shoving her face into her tenth pie.

A few moments later, she began choking, coughing and spluttering loudly.

She grabbed her glass, and chugged the whole pint of 'water' down in one go.

LuigiGirl raised her head, glancing awkwardly at her partner. "Done!" She called. "Geez, we told ya to-"

Dixie stopped, bringing her head up.

"Oh..." She groaned, clutching her stomach. "Suddenly I... I don't feel so good..."

"Are you okay?" LuigiGirl asked, beginning to slightly panic.

Dixie slowly stood up from her chair, her stomach growling rabidly, like a wild dog.

Andrew pulled his head free from his ninth pie.

"Hey-hey, what's up? Has poor little Dixie got a tummy ache? Pah, you'll never make it as far as me!" He mocked.

"Keep eatin' those pies, Bandwidth! It was great to have you quiet for more than three seconds!" LuigiGirl growled.

"Pah." Andrew said again, sneering at Dixie. "She's a wuss, never will beat the almighty Bandwidth at eating contests!"

"Andrew..." Dixie coughed. "You better shut up... Or I'll-"

Dixie gasped, her eyes rolling backwards in fear.

She opened her mouth to finish her sentence - but a cascading waterfall of purple vomit erupted from her throat, tumbling from her mouth, and drenching Andrew in a purple sticky mess.

Dixie didn't stop, she continued breathing fire for around two minutes - by this time, Andrew had almost drowned in the purple sea, and the floor had somehow flooded too.

Dixie coughed hard, before closing her eyes, and tumbling backwards, landing with a hard thump on the floor.

 

My sister and I are talking a lot this holiday season.  You can tell we miss the old bag of our granny that passed last year about Thanksgiving time.  I called her and will still call her an old bag cause she was!  Get over it!  Didn't mean I didn't love the ol bat!

 

Anyway I grew up really lucky with grandmothers who baked and cooked.  Some folks have one granny that does it all and one granny that doesn't do anything.  Well Granny R who is still kicking did all the cookies, pies, and such.  Granny F did all the booze and candies:D:P  And the holidays we were spoiled let me tell you.  I had no clue that people actually bought holiday candies till I was in upper elementry because Granny F made all her own candies for the holidays!

 

My sister and I managed to get the majority of Granny F's recipes.  I got the majority of the food ones (interestingly enough the majority of them contain booze!:D) with a few candy ones.  My sister got the majority of the candie ones with a few food ones.  We are going through them over the phone and emailing the ones we dont' have back to each other.  Then I am goign to email them to our cousin Tammy who didn't get anythign but the rest of my Blue Willow China (i am pist over that still and different story)  And when our lil cousins Sidney and Mckenzie get to adult hood (they are first cousins also but growing up like I did on my dad's side with the 2nd cousins) we will give them Granny's candie recipes also! 

 

Now Granny F was a tad bit selfish and lazy and unless she knew she was goign to get major recogniction for her cooking she cheated a lot but that didn't mean her candies weren't good!  they were excellent!  Yesterday goign through the candie recipes I have I found her Rock Candy Recipe!  It is sooooooooo easy and I remember making it with my brother when I was about my kids' age.  Guess what we are doing this weekend barring if Coltin is stilld own and out?  Making candie and the Rock Candy is goign to be our first thing! 

 

I am going to share it with you all! 

 

From the kitchen of Irene K. Neill-Loofe-Fuller  (Granny's maiden, married, and second married name!)

 

3/4 cup Sugar

Food Coloring-various colors or one depending on what color you want

1/2 cup water

1/4 tsp Flavoring oil-your choice

1/2 cup Light Corn Syrup

Dash of Salt

Confectioners Sugar aka Powered Sugar

 

In a small sauce pan, combine sugar, water, syrup, and salt.

 

Stir until sugar disolves.

 

Cover bring to a rolling boil.  Remove lid, place candy themoter in pan and cook to 250 degree.  Add food coloring and continue cooking to 300 degree.

 

Remove from heat at 285 to 290 degrees as tempetature will contineu to rise to 300 degree.

 

Let cool a few minutes.  Add flavoring oil and cover 5 more minutes. 

 

Pour into buttered 7x10" pan.  Cut into strips with shears as soon as cool enough to handle.  Cut into different shapes!

 

when cold, dust w/ powdered sugar. 

Jake is on the menu tomorrow for us.

Spousal Unit gave me this odd look as we were eating the Quill Traditional Night-Before-Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie (I always make at least 2 pies -- one for Thanksgiving and one for the night before).  "Do you know what a young male turkey is called?" he asked.

Well, judging by the expression on his face, I thought that maybe a young male turkey had a name that might turn out to be...naughty...in contemporary polite company.  With trepidation, I said... "No.... What?"

"Jake."

I had no idea. Tom, yes. But Jake? So I went here and found this: 


So, if you're roasting Tom, Jake or Jenny tomorrow, please eat responsibly. 

Watch Son-in-Law, too.  Especially the "plucking the turkey" scene.

Ahh, the wonders of the once a year feast at which we all get to see just how full we can stuff ourselves. I love all the gorging and unadulturated nonsense that goes on at these gatherings of friends and family. I would have to say that my favorite part has to be the eating of the pies. Oh the joy of filling your plate with as much sugary goodness as you can handle, and then going back for more. I also enjoy making the pies. This year I made a pie that I had not made or eaten in a good while: pecan pie. It was delicious. I also made the all time favorite and traditional pumkin pie. That was pretty tasty as well.

Another     

Bon Appetit and Gourmet and Cooking magazine- yea I read them  but I never pay attention to the quantity, just  the ingredients. Maybe when you know the theory of cooking you can stop bothering  with the basic and look for the little extra zips that change a thing and bring it back from the dead.  So recipes are not instructions for me, they are general guides and a starting off point. Laurie introduced me to the Cake Bible and the Pie Bible, Laurie being a flaming S, and so I wanted to be worthy of her  or see it her way and for over six months my pie crust was horrible. Without using the intuitive side of sensing and instead carefully measuring and weighing the magic was gone. I had to unlearn what Birnbaum was instructing me and go back to my way. Very much like I had to go back to my way after I was dropped.  Wow. I never saw the connection between losing my ability to make great pie crust and being reunited – albeit short lived yet forever- with a birth child.  How so much got redefined during that chaotic stormy time, motherless mother, childless child, my wife status even being challenged internally and certainly after the clouds cleared there were new ways I was demanding from those around me because by exposing the fact of having given birth to the world and  finding that I wasn’t shamed into hell as my mother had led me to believe I found that I actually had survived, and that the real survival could not be counted until I had decided to be open about it. And then there was no turning back. And even though it all went sour I was left with a sense of closure and relief that I had done the right thing and that things matter. But what does that have to do with cooking? Oh she likes so many of the same things I like, gardening and decorating and cooking, especially pies. But I don’t cook with recipes. I was thinking this as I made pancakes this afternoon on the perfectly seasoned griddle that needs no fat.

 

 

Of course the regular stuff goes in there. Flour and baking powder and salt sugar vanilla, and then one adds that dried berry medley from trader joe’s and pecan pieces and 2 eggs and some milk until it looks right and then you slop it on the griddle and let them rise and do what griddle cakes do, and you must use 100% maple syrup- and with global warming it could be a generation before the new England maple syrup industry is extinct so get MAPLE SYRUP now while you can.  And  then  let the cat investigate them before she climbs into a basket for more snoozing in preparation for the 9:30 pm madness that overtakes her where  she freaks herself out and chases shadows and tries to stalk the television image but never catches it. I really don’t mind using the spell checker but I don’t like proof reading my own stuff. Never did, never will. It’s all mental vomit anyway. And if you are reading this, Jim, tell nancy hello, if she would add me to her address list I could email her.