Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Your Weekly Pie #1

I know it's been a long time, but I'm back to revive this blog. Let's go over the major developments.

I found a job! I decided to stay in Atlanta, and these days I'm busy saving your endangered historic structures at The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation. My job mainly involves writing some reports and thank you notes. It's pretty lovely, and I work at Rhodes Hall, which is an incredible late Reconstruction-era mansion done in the style of Rhineland castle. Not too shabby.

I walk to work everyday from my attic apartment. It's about 200 feet from Piedmont Park. I share it with Lou, and we both watched enough Sesame Street and had younger siblings, so we're good at sharing.

I have some stories and pictures, but really, I brought back this blog for one reason: pie.
My grandmother died while I was in high school. Mary Cronk was a woman of many talents. She was great at crossword puzzles, at listening to my concerns without laughing, at dealing cards, and at making dessert. During World War II, when my grandfather was driving his tank, she worked in a typing pool for the OSS and mastered a few recipes from that wartime's most popular cookbook. It was three years before the war started that she bought her Women's Home Companion Cookbook, which my Aunt Donna passed my way a couple years ago. I miss my grandma. She deserves a tribute, and in her honor, I'm going to make a pie every week from the WHCC. Until I run out or lose interest.

This week, a variation on the pecan pie as advised in the concluding part of the pie chapter. I know, an ambitious start. I made the chocolate chess pie, featuring pecans and bourbon.

It looks good? More brownie like than I expected. It tasted like a good batch of brownies too, with some crust on the outside. I liked it. I wish it were slightly less fluffy, but I think that taking out an egg and moving closer to a traditional pecan pie recipe would solve that problem. When I do it again, I will make sure to have vanilla ice cream and coffee on-hand as well.

Next week, I'm going to give my first strawberry pie a shot. It should be a challenge, and I'm really excited to make my first graham cracker crust from scratch.

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