I am thankful for humor. I don't want to live life without laughter. I just don't. And I have found that even in the craziest situations, there is generally something to laugh about.
My son-in-law, K, is almost always able to find something to laugh about. It is one of the gifts he brings to this world. But even when he's joking - like asking for a Double French Silk - I take him just seriously enough...
I talked about this idea a few days ago here. I thought I'd give you a quick update on how this is going before I move on to my story about humor and pie.
So I began with chocolate meringue using Helen Fletcher's Italian meringue recipe, and once I added the cocoa, I started to panic. The meringue lost a bunch of volume, so I'm sure that I did something wrong, but I went ahead and piped it in hopes it might work. I made one filled in circle and 2 rings.
Reminiscent of Mickey Mouse, don't ya think?
And then I dried them in a 200 degree oven for about 2.5 hours until they were crips. Since they seemed to retain their shape ok, I thought maybe I hadn't ruined the meringue like I was afraid had happened.
I went to bed and had a bad dream about losing G in the Las Vegas airport and our cell phones got swapped, and I was afraid he would never hear me calling my cell phone from his phone, especially if he didn't have my phone in his otter box holder....it woke me up, y'all. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves about how to interpret this dream. But at that point, I figured I might as well go ahead with the next phase of this Double French Silk endeavor.
I stacked the 2 rings on top of the filled in circle and then took some of the leftover meringue to glue it all together. And then put it back in the oven at 200 degrees to dry another 2.5 hours and went back to bed until 3:30. This time I didn't have any bad dreams.
But wait! This case/crust isn't finished yet! Last night, I painted the inside with melted chocolate to serve as a seal for the French Silk chocolate filling that I will add tomorrow.
So let's see....that is a chocolate meringue crust (1), a chocolate coating (2), some French Silk filling (3), with some whipped ganache (4) and whipped cream roses all over the top and finally garnished with some shaved chocolate (5). So the argument could be made that this isn't a Double French Silk, but a quintuple French Silk - if you were a math pi genius (pun intended, not a typo), which I suppose I am since I made a point of counting the chocolate-ness of this pie adventure.
Are ya feelin' the love, K? Have I told you lately that I'm glad you're part of our fam? And that your cake snob skills are coming along nicely?
Now for my humorous story. At least I hope you find it humorous. This is a story that P shared with me when she got off the plane after a recent visit with her grandparents who live in Florida. And it has to do with pie, and it has to do with her pie choice, so I have to share it, right? P recently called me her "sensitivity coach", and I hope I tell this story in such a way that I don't lose that title, but here goes.
See this pic?
Can you tell what that is? It's an apple on the left, and a cookie cutter on the right in the shape of a hand.
But let me back up a bit. My son, D, and my friend, P, both stand in the Same Pie Every Year camp. They want the same pie - apple - and the race every year is to see who can declare it earliest so that the apple pie is "theirs" that year. And I have tried to satisfy the other with a Dutch Apple (good) or a Peanut Butter Apple (ok, but not a keeper or a repeater in my book). You get the idea. But it's never quite the same as the pure Apple Pie. So this year, I decided that I would make 2 Apple pies, one for each of them.
But how would I distinguish which pie belongs to whom?
Until P told me this story, and then I had my answer!
P's grandfather is older. I've forgotten now whether he is in his late 80's or early 90's, but the actual age is somewhat immaterial. The main thing is the main thing...like many in their upper years, he is battling some dementia. I mean no disrespect to that hardship, I promise you, but sometimes - even in the craziest of situations - there is humor to be found. And such is the case in P's grandfather. He didn't want to get his hair cut. He didn't want to wear that shirt, he wanted to wear his some color and some color plaid shirt, but he couldn't find his some color and some color plaid shirt. You get the idea. P was dealing with a 4-year old in many respects. They don't call it your second childhood for nothin', folks.
Well P's mother does the primary care giving for both of P's grandparents, and she told P this story. A few weeks ago, P's mother, I will call her "M" for Mom, had baked an apple pie and set it on the counter to cool. M went back to her bedroom while it was cooling.
M hears a knock on her bedroom door.
"Is that your pie?" P's grandfather asks.
"Yes," M replies.
"Is it apple?"
"Yes, it's apple," M replies.
"Well, I think I stuck my hand in it," P's grandfather states and quietly walks away.
Uh, what? Huh? Are you scratching your head about now like I am? Good. It's not just me. And I promise you I mean no disrespect to P's grandfather or anything by this story, and I hope no one turns me in to the AARP sensitivity league, but I just think it's funny in a very sweet, cute, dementia sort of way.
So when I found the little hand cookie cutter, I had to buy it. Right? And I have to cut out little hands in the top crust of P's pie. Not D's pie, but P's pie. Right? It's a must, right?
One more time. On the pic. And I set an apple next to it for perspective so you could see just how stinkin' cute this little cookie cutter is.
1 more day to Pie Night! Aren't you glad pie is so fun and even has its humorous moments?
Signed,
Sensitivity Coach - in hopes I haven't lost that title....
No comments:
Post a Comment