Sayings & Stories

From the old days to today…

The Infamous Lemon Meringue Pie

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It was 1986, the second  full summer my husband and I were dating, and I’d recently learned that one of his favorite pies was lemon meringue. My mother always made a wonderful lemon meringue, with flaky, tender crust, tangy-sweet lemon filling, and a shiny, billowy and perfectly-browned meringue heaped on top. I’d watched her bake all sorts of creations from scratch many times and thought how difficult could it be?

My mother was busy with other cooking and going up and down the cellar stairs with the laundry, so I just went ahead and read her recipe card of instructions as I completed the process of mixing and rolling the pie crust dough. After the first roll-out, it didn’t look right, so I scooped it all into a ball and rolled it out again. Then a third time. I wanted this pie to be perfect for my new boyfriend!

The rest of the pie-making went splendidly. The filling looked good and the meringue top turned out fluffy and pretty. I hovered over the oven as it browned, pulling it out when just the right shade of caramel touched the tips. Into the fridge went the pie, to await the moment of glory after supper at the Homestead that night with my boyfriend in attendance.

When the time came, I was wreathed in smiles, seeing how happy my boyfriend was at the effort I’d gone through to make one of his favorite desserts. We gave him the honors of cutting the first piece of pie. I felt a tingle of apprehension as he cut into the center…and then had to push down pretty hard to cut through (and he was a college football player with plenty of arm muscle to spare). He was still smiling, though, and I tried to keep a brave face – but it all came to a screeching halt when he put the piece of pie on his plate and tried to use his fork to get a bite.

His fork wouldn’t cut through the bottom of the crust.

He paused, a little flustered, and my heart fell. My mother looked at me and whispered, “Did you have any trouble when you were making the crust?”

I shrugged. “Well, I had to roll it out three times to get it just right.”

She started to chuckle. Anyone who has worked with pastry knows that it has to be handled lightly and as little as possible to be tender and flaky. The more it’s handled the tougher it gets. My boyfriend, who had a good sense of humor said, “Well, I can just eat it like this…” and he picked up the slice of pie by the fluted edge, lifting it from the plate and intending to take a bite that way.

Except the pie didn’t shift. The crust was like a rock, preventing the filling or meringue from moving even a fraction. If he’d tried to bite it, he’d probably have broken a tooth.

Everyone burst out laughing at that point, including me. In my quest for perfection, I’d created an inedible crust. But as my boyfriend reassured me, the lemon filling and the meringue tasted good!

Rituals: The Lady in the Red Dress

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When I was little, I was like most kids: I didn’t like to go to bed. However, I was unlike other kids, perhaps, in that I was almost always happy: Singing, playing, occasionally getting into mischief, and just general loving life. Like really loving it, from the moment I woke up, smiling and raring to go every morning, according to my parents (yes, I agree, that might be supremely annoying in an adult, but don’t worry; although I’m generally an optimist, I outgrew the constant sunniness by my 20’s for the most part. The way I see it, Giselle in Enchanted could only get away with it because she was…well, a princess).

Anyway, as a child, I never wanted to waste precious time sleeping.

If I wasn’t running around having fun inside our little house, I was playing outside in the yard or in the woods with the two sisters closest in age to me, often while at least one of my other, older sisters watched over us. Pa was at work during the day of course. Ma was never far away, but she was busy doing two loads of laundry a day (timing it so the well wouldn’t run dry), cleaning, and cooking for nine – or 11 when we had two “Fresh Air” sisters living with us each summer.

You’d think I would be tired out by the time 7:30pm rolled around.

I suppose I was, but I just didn’t want to give up and hit the sack.

Pa, who ruled the roost with a wonderful combination of military-style strictness and indulgent soft-heartedness (in my eyes anyway), liked to invent games of all kinds, sometimes as a way of connecting playfully with his kids but often also teaching us something important in the process, too (like logical reasoning, persuasion, or sharing etc). In this case, he invented a game by which I could feel I had some control over my bedtime (and therefore never need to dissolve into a tantrum, which would need to be dealt with sternly), but through which I was still following the rules. It was the “Goodnight” game….made popular in our family long before any of us ever knew there was a book called “Goodnight Moon”.

It went like this: when it was time for me to go to bed, Pa would let me say goodnight to everyone in the house (which meant at least eight other people, so that took a while), plus the dog (Lassie), the cats (Dominique, Gigi, and Marmalade), any other pets we might have at the time (there were birds and fish and even turtles at one point or another) and various objects around the house. When I got to the “Lady in the Red Dress” I knew time for bed was really near. I said goodnight to her and then with a big sigh, I let my Mama walk me (and my younger sister) upstairs to bed.

Several years ago, I inherited our family’s (very inexpensive) print of the Lady  – the official name of which I later learned is “Sonata” by M. Ditlef –  and I will always treasure it for the happy memories of times gone by. “Goodnight Lady in the Red Dress!” Anyone have any bedtime rituals you did as children (or do now with your own kids) to share?

Sonata M-DITLEF

“Sonata” by M. Ditlef

Something my Mama always said

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“You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”

 

I’ve always loved this saying, maybe because it gave me a tactile metaphor for the idea of trying to be nice, rather than being pouty and mean…the difference between Charlie in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and snooty Veruca Salt.  I’ve heard variations on this saying, at least one from an Irish nun, so I have a feeling it has Celtic roots (since my mother’s grandmother, who is the one that taught this saying to my mother, was from the Emerald Isle herself). Anyone else have any variations or connections to this saying and/or cultural connections to it?