Pie, Oh My!

It's impossible not to long for my mother around the holidays; she was the reigning queen supreme of beautiful cakes, pies, and cookies. Mincemeat was her favorite, and her version was always spiked with loads of extra brandy and bedecked with a miniature Della Robbia wreath she would painstakingly sculpt out of marzipan.

Her Christmas cookie assortment -- known to make people swoon -- included cinnamon stickies, apricot tarts, and stars glittering with those silver nonpareils which are now illegal (if she were still around, she'd have them smuggled in from somewhere, I'm sure).

My own humble pie has a too-brown crust and a cracked surface on its pumpkin filling and makes me miss her even more. But she would have smothered it in whipped cream and eaten it just the same, and for that thought, I am thankful...

Baby Loves Pie

We watched the movie Waitress the other night, and although the cute story seemed muddled in places and the questionable moral message had us scratching our heads, there was a little tune (simply called The Pie Song) the lead character sang, and we've all been humming it nonstop since we heard it.

Baby don't you cry,
gonna make a pie,
gonna make a pie
with a heart in the middle.

Baby don't be blue,
gonna make for you,
gonna make a pie
with a heart in the middle.

Gonna make a pie
from heaven above,
gonna be filled
with strawberry love.

Baby don't you cry,
gonna make a pie,
and hold you forever
in the middle of my heart.

Creative pie names and flavors are the gimmick of the film and Claire got in to the spirit of things, creating her own recipe at bedtime last night and extracting a promise from me that we could make it today. As with anything Claire would tell you to do, she wants to be sure her instructions are followed precisely: first, put a thin, even layer of sliced bananas on the crust; then, pour in a liberal amount of hot chocolate pudding; cover the whole thing with whipped cream, and put blueberries on top with a strawberry heart in the middle.

And there you have it: Claire's Baby Love Pie. Luckily, the results met her exacting standards. I know this because, even after she had an official slice on a plate, I found her standing inside the refrigerator eating another serving with her fingers...