This was my prayer...a piece of ground not over large with a garden and near to the house a stream of constant water.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

My best friend (Sue Ellen) since high school bakes a pie for Thanksgiving…

 

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   Today my BFFSHS and I were gabbing about just ordinary stuff and she mentioned how she planned to make a cherry pie to take to her son and daughter-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving. It did not start out well. When she opened the first prepared pie filling can, it was strawberry. At this point I would have considered a mixed berry pie or Marie Callender but Sue and her amazing eight-year-old granddaughter Katie got in their truck (they live in semi-rural Texas) and drove to their nearest convenience store and paid triple for a second can of cherry pie filling, praying it had not been on that shelf for several years. Additionally, she had forgotten that she had used the last of those terrific ready-made pie crusts and laid down another ransom for two packages. Thank God she remembered or another trip back would have been necessary.

     Back home, oven was pre-heated, crusts were fluted, foil sheets put on the newly-cleaned oven floor and 45 minutes until pie Nirvana. Soon the sweet smell of baking pie filled the house. My friend sat down at her computer to pay bills, check e-mail and she found that she needed to call the 800 number of her credit card company. She was chatting with a delightful young man who quickly answered her questions. He was in Baltimore and mentioned that he had had a “girlfriend” in fifth grade who was also named Sue Ellen. He was most likely glad to keep yacking to help the last shift before the holiday pass easily. Out of the corner of her eye Sue spotted flames coming from her oven. “Gotta go” she said to the delightful young man. “My oven is on fire”. “Well, Happy Thanksgiving and I hope I have provided the service our customers expect of us…” responded the well-trained young customer service man. Click! as the house could possibly go up next.

     Sure enough, the oven was on fire. What to do? Open the oven door? Throw salt on the flames, thus ruining the pies (she had ended up making two so as not to waste the strawberries)? Not wanting to panic in front of her granddaughter, she calmly turned off the oven and waited for the flames to subside.  Turns out, apparently, the self-cleaning oven had missed a glob of chicken fat, thus the source of the inferno. But the pies appeared unscathed. With the source of the flames removed, it appeared safe to just keep on baking the pies. The timer was set. Now 40 minutes until pie heaven.

     But no…she had set the temperature and forgotten to push the “start” button so the oven had become ice cold and the pies remained raw. This was one of the “What the hell!” occasions when you make an executive decision, in this case, reheat the oven and finish off the now uncertainly-cooked delicacies (with so much money invested, why not?).

     Well when the crusts appeared brown, out they came. And I, with my well-developed sense of doom and foreboding began to tell her of all the dire possibilities these pies might still face. I mentioned dropping them on the floor, having one of enormous (think Marmaduke or Clifford the Big Red Dog) and usually well-behaved dogs reach up on the counter and eat them, or a food-borne illness (remember I have a Masters degree in Public Health and studied for one semester the tragedies that can occur at even the best-intentioned church suppers). The pies could slide off the car seat during a sudden stop or could mistakenly be sat on. Endless tragedies could befall these pies.

    We discussed what a metaphor for life were these pies. Maybe sometimes the Universe just does not want certain things to happen but we just keep pushing. Think back over your own life and substitute certain life events, decisions, etc. for “pie”.

    Then I thought back to Thanksgivings past at my grandparents. My grandmother had a very old (now vintage) green enamel gas stove that sat up on four little legs. Our jobs as kids was to lay on the floor and run a dust rag under there to clear out the non-existent crumbs and dirt she just knew lurked underneath. It had no light nor timer nor electronic ignition. In fact, the pilot light for the burners and oven were lighted with thick wooden kitchen matches. I was scared of the whooshing and popping sound made when the gas caught fire. My great aunt Angeline was prevented from lighting the oven when she repeatedly singed off her eyebrows and melted her hair net. And the oven door had a spring on it like a wolf trap, capable of snapping child-size forearms in an unsuspecting second. What deliciousness emerged from that tiny space.

     In the lovely Victorian house I was privileged to live in for ten years, I inherited a marvelous Chambers stove (also now highly collectible). It put you in mind of a reclining snowman. It baked the best bread I ever had next to my grandmother’s. But, I replaced it with a six burner, double oven (one convection,) duel-fuel stainless steel sixty inch wide miracle of food preparation. The cost of it could have covered several semesters  at a community college. The ovens had to be constantly recalibrated, the 30,000 BTU burners cooked almost everything to a cinder. The knobs either got stuck or fell off.The stainless tell was impossible to keep gleaming without using nasty chemicals. I hesitated to cook on it as it was so difficult to clean.

   And I now look back on that that appliance lusting as just another example of be careful what you wish for and listen to what the Universe may be telling you.

1 comment:

  1. ... "what a metaphor for life were these pies." Though for some of us, life is more like Velveeta & saltines.

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