good on paper

salute to pie!

Here it is!  As it is thanksgiving, it's time for the second annual salute to pie.

Wikipedia credits the Egyptians with the first pie around 2000 BC.  What can't the Egyptians be credited with?  Certainly paper and love of the domestic cat.  Anyway, from there the pie went to Greece, and then to Rome, where they were often made with goat cheese and honey.  Eventually the British got wind of the fabulousness, although they favored various meat fillings, and sent it off to America with the first settlers who soon after invented Thanksgiving.

Wikipedia also hypothesizes that pie might be an inherently funny word, along with underpants, duck, grunties (slang for U.S infantrymen), and anything in the Dutch language.  The Dutch, however, apparently find Swedish hilarious.  Go figure.

The following images all turned up in a google image search for pie.

We begin with the finest kind of chart:

From there it's straight to pie in a bottle:

Let's hear what Mr. T has to say on the subject:

Eat pie, suckah!

Here's one called "Engineers Make the Pie Bigger!"

And where would we be without the classic Demoulin Pie Table?

It's a corker with the cork removed.  And a bargain at $32.

How I long for the days of the horse-drawn pie:

I think more people need a room dedicated to pie.  This image is called "The Pie and Coffee Room."

A good start would be to begin incorporating more pies into poolhalls:

A classic by pie-ologist Wayne Thiebaud.  See the cream pie?

This next one is from www.toothpastefordinner.com, a website I was once addicted to.

Finally:

 

Long live pie.

pie times

Yesterday Kyle, Sabrina, Laura and Darren all came over to make mincemeat pie for Thanksgiving from scratch.  It was such a lovely night. 

There is no meat in most modern mincemeat pies, only dried fruits and spices.  And the directions could not be simpler, "Mix all ingredients together."  We peeled and chopped apples, zested and squeezed lemons, measured raisins, currants and brandy and threw everything into one giant pot placed in the middle of the table.  It was like an old fashioned quilting bee, except it was pie.  We stirred frequently and watched Kyle churn out batch after batch of pie crust dough, which he wrapped and stacked in the fridge, a golden tower of flaky promise.

After the larder was full of the various components of pie, Darren discovered the Steam Boat that Turner gave me and Ted for a wedding present. 

It is an antique toy replica and it runs on cooking oil.  It is a simplified but real steam engine.  Basically, there are two tubes, one that sucks in water and one that spits out steam, which propels the boat.

 

There is a tiny spoon that you fill with cooking oil.  Then you add a wick, light it up, position it in the boat, and off it goes.  We sailed ours in a cookie tray full of water on the table.  It made a small putt-putting gurgling sound which was completely mezmerizing.  We turned out the lights for maximum effect.  Here it is in action:

The photos are dark and mysterious, like the alchemy of propeling a boat with the very water it travels upon and the alchemy of turning fruit into the deep, rich miracle that is mincemeat pie.

prescient

Ted sent away to the Town of Greenwich for the official copy of our marriage license.  When it arrived I was surprised to find that he had requested two copies. 

You know, so we each get one in the divorce.

fair warning

I have a pretty strict rule about not broaching the subject of Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but I can't help myself.  I have idea, and I'm very excited about it.  I'm giving you all fair warning to plan and schedule.

Two parties: collaborative gingerbread house making party and collective gingerbread house eating party. 

Laura, Sabrina, I'm looking at you. 

Every year I want to make a gingerbread house, a spectacular one, an icon of modern architecture like the Farnsworth House or the A&A at Yale.  I never do, and then some jerk does it and gets it published in Dwell magazine.

But this year is different.  This year I'm really going to do it.  This is totally not like every summer when I say I'm going to go to an amusement park or every daylight savings when I swear I really will replace the batteries in my smoke detector and get my moles checked.  I'M REALLY GOING TO DO THIS!  The house doesn't even have to be iconic. Or modern.  But it has to be spectacular, with lights and maybe even an interior, with mice made out of raisins or some such thing.  It could even be a village.  Or a civic building. 

All of you, even out-of-staters (KIP!) consider yourselves warned.  Clear your schedules in December and start thinking about which candy looks like other things.

treed

Have you ever been invited to sit in a tree in the rain for about half an hour holding a balloon and wearing a rain poncho that is supposed to make you look like a ghost?  I have!  And I accepted the invitation because it was part of the birthday party of a little girl that I adore.  She turned six on Sunday and her dad (my boss) staged a treasure hunt in the park near their house.

The treasure hunt had an elaborate back story:

Basically, the Griswold family had a large estate house in Edgarton Park in New Haven.  True!  The house is no longer there.  True!  Some of the demented descendants of the family have never left the park and wander mournfully about lamenting the loss of their ancestral home and the treasure within it that was guarded by a fierce beast in the depths of the basement who now also roams the park.  False!

But it makes a good story.

So I was a ghost who lived in the giant beech tree.  Ted said I looked hilarious in the poncho sitting on a branch in the rain trying to look mournful, but he was the one riding a tiny pink bike while wearing a hockey helmet.

Oh, he was also part of the treasure hunt.

formal statement

I officially apologize for my laxness in posting lately.  I've been racking my brain for what to post that wasn't birthday or wedding related and what do you know?  Nothing.  Also, we've been scrambling around trying to tie up all the loose wedding ends and there's always more than you think.  For those of you who aren't already (or still) bored with wedding related items, our next loose end is posting photos.  That will happen soon.

To catch up, we saw Borat, along with every single other person we know.  I liked it so much better than I ever expected. 

We watched like six hours of election coverage at our friends Stephen and Moa's Tuesday night.

We visited the house that we designed that is now almost done.  More promises of photos.

I cooked a dinner for our friend Andrew from the Silver Spoon cookbook in my new LeCreuset 2 quart dutch oven in kiwi.  It was only alright.

We're thinking of weatherstripping the windows this weekend.

We tried on wigs handing out Halloween candy on A & J's porch.

I played with K&S's new little kitty, Percy.

I sold a baby quilt!

And I was a guest critic for a student review at Yale, which made me feel extremely academic.

So!  That's about it.  But I hope to be returning to regular postings soon.