AS EASY AS PIE

We've all heard the saying. When describing something as extremely easy, we compare it to pie. Simple, unfettered, elementary. "Oh, you can do it. It's as easy as pie!" Crust + Filling = Delicious Pie. A basic equation but for me making pie may as well have been as complex as pi, and let's just say math is not my strong suit.

My first experience with making pies was in 1974 in Miss Miranda's junior high home economics class. Her impossible mission was to subdue two dozen giggling teenage girls and mold them into mini Betty Crockers, a tall order for a young teacher short on experience. Miss Miranda divided us into groups of four and gave us our first assignment. On typing paper she had handwritten a cream pie recipe with six variations. As she handed out mimeographed copies to each group, she shrilled in a Julia Child-esque voice, "You must first master the basic recipe. It's quite easy but remember to not leave out any ingredientses." No, that is not a typo. Miss Miranda said "ingredients-es". She pluralized a plural. Perhaps that was an omen. If something so easy had multiple ingredients-es, then its easiness was already suspect.

My table of four headed to our cooking station. Two girls worked on the crust which was thankfully a basic graham cracker recipe. Another classmate and I attempted the custard filling which consisted of sugar, flour, salt, milk, egg yolks, butter and vanilla extract. Our end product? An unsightly filling speckled with errant graham cracker crumbs and scorched custard.

The following week Miss Miranda assigned each group a variation: vanilla, chocolate, banana, butterscotch, coconut, and lemon. At the end of class we would sample each pie. My group landed the banana variation. Our second attempt at mastering the custard filling was somewhat successful; no charred chunks although it was a bit runny. We sliced bananas, placed them in the graham cracker crust, and poured in the filling. Perhaps if we had time to chill the pie, the filling could have thickened. Instead, we offered our soupy pie to the rest of the class. I don't recollect that any of the other groups' pies were worthy of a James Beard Award. The coconut pie had too much grated coconut which made it strangely chewy. The chocolate pie had a faint chocolate flavor, like diluted Nestle's Quik. And it's amazing we all didn't die of salmonella poisoning from the lemon pie's raw egg meringue.

Fast forward to 1985. I was a new bride. Despite Miss Miranda's noble efforts to churn out Betty Crockers and despite me having a masterful cook for a mother, my lack of cooking skills and lack of enthusiasm to learn were a sure recipe for culinary disaster. My poor husband patiently and bravely endured many of attempts, too many to even recount here. Perhaps in another book.

But getting back to 1985.....

For Thanksgiving that year, we were invited to spend the holiday with my sister who was blessed with my mother's cooking gene. I offered to bring something and my sis, knowing I had a sweet tooth, asked me to bring, of all things, a pie. I hadn't attempted baking pies since the Grand Pie Debacle of 1974. What was I to do? Should I bring a Marie Callender's bakery pie? No, that would be an easy cop out. Store bought equals cardinal sin on the most sacred holiday of home-cooked goodness.

So with great trepidation, I cracked open a gift from my mother-in-law, herself an accomplished cook. The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook had photos of every recipe and straightforward step-by-step instructions with accompanying pictures of each step. I donned my apron and lined up the measuring cups, mixing bowls, and ingredients. I flipped to page 334 and glanced at the ten illustrated steps in creating a basic 2-crust pastry. Steps 1-5 looked awfully messy. With having to mix the flour, salt, shortening and water with a pastry blender (which I didn't own), I decided to condense five steps into one by using a hand mixer. I was feeling pretty smug being such a time-efficient cook. And I left out the salt, totally disregarding Miss Miranda's instruction to "not leave out any ingredients-es." The pumpkin filling recipe looked easy enough. Thank goodness for canned pumpkin. And why not substitute skim milk for evaporated milk? And no cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves? No problem. I had ginger powder so I simply quadrupled the measure to make up for the lack of other spices. Don't the world's greatest chefs simply wing it? And to think with this one effort I would produce two pies. Wow, this truly was easy as pie!

My end result? Two goopy ginger pies with hockey puck crusts. I threw off my apron and walked away in defeat to Marie Callender's.

It's 2010. I have been married 25 years to the original brave soul who thankfully survived my near-toxic culinary concoctions. I have raised two fine children who, by the time they were born, had a mother who could make her way around a kitchen. I studied cuisines of the world, sifted through umpteen recipes and created my own, entered and won cooking contests, amassed a cookbook collection that rivals the Library of Congress, and confidently threw elaborate dinner parties.

My cooking confidence at a peak coupled with my penchant for sweets, I delved into the fanciful world of cakes.....

Angel food, devil's food, tiramisu

Pound cake, sponge cake, coffee cake, too

Short as a bundt or tiered up high

Mastering cakes is as easy as pie!

I devoured cake cookbooks, enrolled in a series of cake decorating classes, and purchased every Wilton pan and accessory I could get my flour-coated hands on. A piece of cake? You bet! Word of mouth helped launch my business, The Coco Confectionery whose mission was to make the town a sweeter place. Although I could bake delectable cakes, decorate them to the nines, and showcase them at weddings and other celebrations, mastering the humble pie still eluded me. Humbling indeed.

Just around the corner 2011 awaits. With a new year comes new resolutions, or perhaps more like the "same old same old" resolutions for most folks: lose weight, get out of debt, exercise more. As I reflect on my past and look to the future where a very large milestone birthday looms, my new year's resolution has taken shape. And that shape is round with a golden crisp crust. My 2011 resolution, drum roll please.....I WILL master pies, fifty in all to celebrate my fifty years on this planet.

How easy is that? As easy as pie, I hope!