This Pie is Delicious with Zithromax

I've been knocked flat for the past week by bronchitis.  Of course, I didn't know it was bronchitis until Derek ever-so-gently nudged me out the door to see the doc Saturday morning (thank you doctors who have Saturday morning office hours- THANK YOU) after a week of listening to me cough-choke-splutter-hack all over the house, and that's in addition to picking up all my slack because I have been USELESS.

It was one of those things where not only did I feel like I could lie down wherever I stood and fall right asleep, but my brain just wasn't working right.  It felt like a big barrier had been erected in the middle of my brain, and if my thoughts originate at the back (we're playing it fast and loose with brain physiology tonight, okay?), they had to get over this barrier to reach the front, where they were accessible and communicable.  But it was one of those army obstacle course-type barriers that you have to jump and climb and wriggle your way over, so all my thoughts had to do that.

So during one of my few hours at work when a patron would ask a perfectly reasonable question like, "What's the newest James Patterson?" I would stare blankly for a no doubt alarming length of time while the biggest part of my brain asked itself, Who's James Patterson? and the answer struggled over the barrier toward the front part of my brain pan, all while that jerk spectating part of the brain sat there watching the whole spectacle with popcorn, chortling, "'Who's James Patterson?' LOL."

Oh, and I looked terrific all through this.  Reeeaaally smashing.

Like this, except about a million times less adorable.

I know I was in good company, as there were a whole mess of people not feeling so great over the past week and a half.

But!  I am now on an antibiotic and already feeling so much better.  My cough is still present-it just chased Derek away from an NFL game and right up the stairs, as a matter of fact, so now I'm struggling not to let the power go to my head.

And cheer up, my fellow Americans, both coughers and non-coughers alike, for we have pie to look forward to this week!

Or, you know, don't cheer up, if you're not ready yet.  I support you and your feelings. *says this while petting your head in a distinctly non-creepy way*

The Best Kind of Tough Choice

Last weekend in Kansas, Adelaide, my mom, and my sister Kelli made pies for the crowd mom had invited over.

Mom always invites a crowd.  It's, like, a thing.

I was so glad Adelaide was having a chance to freshen up her pie skills, as we haven't made any in a while, and you know I'm not eating any subpar pie at Thanksgiving.  I just won't have it.

Adelaide was doubly pleased because when she asked to put a lattice crust on the top they said, "Sure."  Adelaide's mother never says, "Sure," when Daughter asks to do a lattice crust because Adelaide's mother is cruel but also because generally when we're making pies we're trying to complete four in a shortened space of time and who the heck has time to make a lattice crust?

Aside from my mom and sister, of course.

Also we don't have one of those zippy-wheely zig-zaggy pie crust lattice cutter thingies (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, well, I'd say that's fair), so that's always been another handy excuse not to make a lattice crust.  Now that Adelaide's made one, however, I might just have to let her try at Thanksgiving.  And speaking of Thanksgiving!

I love this book, because how could you not love a cookbook that, if you were to make a pie chart depicting its contents, would look like this:

Yes, I made a pie chart about a pie cookbook.  There was no way it was not happening.  I don't have that kind of superhuman self control.


In addition to being a professional pie maker (pie artist?  pie-ologist?  baker?), Ms. Howard is a writer, so the essays in between sections are well-written and interesting.  I sat down last night and read the thing like a novel, front to back.  Now I get to go back and decide which ones will make it onto our table; Adelaide's voting for Chess Pie, which I have neither baked nor eaten before, but which the author makes a strong case for.  My front-runners are her Toffee Pecan, Chai-Spiced Pumpkin, Shaker Lemon, Strawberry Margarita, or Banana Cream.  I have no idea how we will ever choose just two of three.

Also in the running is her Apple Pie.  It is classic.  It is simple.  It is delicious.

It has a lattice crust.

Important Pi Day Happenings

It's spring break around here, and when I woke up this morning it was cool and misty and foggy:  Perfect weather for a trip to Reiman Gardens!

The children didn't quite share my opinion- I mean, they were happy enough to go to the public garden, but didn't understand why foggy and chilly made it perfect.  I, in my more advanced years, knew that such conditions would serve the two-fold purpose of 1) keeping away any crowds, and 2) make it possible for us to pretend that we were on the English moors, or wandering through an English winter garden, or any number of things foggy and English.

And I was right, on all counts.  

We saw all of two other visitors.  This is possibly also due to the fact that in March, there's not a lot blooming in the garden- not a single thing, actually, at least outdoors- but there are still things to do and see and hills to ramble over.

We found a spiderweb, which for once I was happy to see, as our winter was mild enough that the freeze only reached a depth of six inches.  This makes me worry that we'll have a buggy spring and summer, so bring on the spiders!  As long as they stay out of our house!  And away from my hands when I'm gardening.  So bring on the shy spiders!

There were some not-so-shy red-winged blackbirds sending up a racket in the lily pond.  I was surprised at how long the kids wanted to pause and observe these.

The kaleidoscopes in the children's area is forever one of my favorite features.  We found they still have wintery plantings in the container, which created some beautiful fractal designs.

Look into my eye.

Adelaide and I also made a quick trip into the women's bathroom, not because females feel a compulsive need to travel in herds to those places, but because you never know what kind of flowers they're going to have in there.

Live daffodils!  Just what Iowans need after a cold winter (although apparently not cold enough, hmmph), and on a dreary spring day.  Keeper of the Reiman Gardens Women's Bathroom (I'm pretty positive that's an official title), thou art wise.  Strangely, the boys reported no flowers in the men's room.  I'm not sure what that means.

On the way home, Adelaide saw a sign for "Apple Pi," and after I explained to her that today was 3/14- or Pi Day- she begged to make a pie.  I told her a bunch of true things, about how I already had a million things to do this afternoon, like laundry and calling about the possibility of a new hot water heater (a tale for another day, hopefully), and packing for tomorrow's trip south (beware, thieves; the muscle's staying behind to guard the new sconces).  She cared about none of these things.  All she cared about was pie.

I ended up making a deal with her:  I would roll out the crust if she did the rest, from finding a recipe to making sure we had all the ingredients to prep work to mixing, all of it.  She chose Strawberry Pie, and then she just, like, made it.  Because yes, baby thunder thighs are oh-so-squeezable, but older kids are where it's at.

I may have dropped the ball on supper (and packing... and most of the laundry) because the outdoors and my flower beds beckoned, but who cares?  We have pie!

Yes, she's wearing different clothes.  When one of your children asks if they can shower, you don't ask questions, you just let it happen.  She was in her jammies at 3 PM, but again, who cares?  We have pie!

Pie and Daughters, Daughters and Pie

The pie is finally gone, which means it's time to talk about pie some more.


We had four pies in attendance on thanksgiving.

If you're scratching your head, counting pies, and saying to yourself, "Hang on, she said..." it's because Derek's sister brought the fourth pie.  I took this picture Wednesday night, after Adelaide and I had made our three offerings, and smack dab in the middle of an epic wrestling match with my flighty self control.  I so badly wanted to somehow sneak a piece, but this is difficult when the pies are still whole and your guests still have functional eyes.  If I can remember to do so, next year I might take some of the leftover pie dough and make myself a tiny, mini-pie in one of my ramekins along with the big kid pies.  I think that qualifies as having your pie and eating it, too, right?

It's entirely possible Adelaide loves making pie more than she loves eating it.  Well, it's close, anyway.  She was giddy all afternoon, waxing poetic about the crimping and the stirring and the rolling.  If you ever get a hankering for homemade pie and don't mind your kitchen being destroyed (we're still working on the whole clean-as-you-go concept), have her over.  She's a riot.  

She ended up making the Berry pie herself, along with completing about half of the recipe for the Caramel-Pecan Pumpkin pie (which was so, so good).  She has already said she wouldn't make the berry again, and that I need to come up with a more challenging pie for her.  I'm thinking strawberry rhubarb, maybe?

When we weren't making pie, we were making mashed potatoes, which I did not get a photo of, but I did get this:

Roasted garlic:  Looks disgusting, tastes delicious when mashed into the potatoes.  Also makes your house smell amazing, provided you think garlic smells amazing, which of course I do.  Do you think there are people out there who possibly don't?  Probably the same ones who say things like, "I don't actually like ice cream," and "I always drive in the left lane on four-lane highways.  I just prefer it on that side, even if it is supposed to be just for passing."

Amidst all the state-sanctioned gluttony and Christmas decorating, I've become increasingly aware of a role reversal between Adelaide and I.  When I get too busy, I don't always use the wisest parts of my brain, and Daughter seems to feel the need to mother me at those times.  Wednesday I got so preoccupied with food prep that I forgot to actually eat anything, until it was 3 p.m. and I was getting a little light-headed.  I made up a pitcher of smoothies for some quick nutrition, but then I got distracted with kitchen clean-up and forgot to actually eat the prepared food, until Adelaide got in my face and commanded me to "SIT DOWN AND EAT BEFORE YOU COLLAPSE."  

Then, I went to haul the Christmas tree out of the basement (we have a fake tree, not a pine forest in our basement.  Just in case you were wondering.), and although Adelaide wanted to help, I insisted on bringing the (rather heavy and large) box up myself.  After much tripping and histrionics on my part, I finally managed to wrestle it up the stairs, and paused for a brief moment to sprawl flat on the kitchen floor, which allowed Adelaide time to tap the box meaningfully and glare at me.

Apparently this is what happens when a bossy eldest child has a bossy eldest child.  I am okay with it, except when I'm not.  I'm pretty sure Daughter feels the same.

Pie, Glorious Pie!

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Bible scholars and I all agree:  This verse is about pie.

Well, maybe faith, too.  But mostly PIE.


Pie prep is underway in the House of Crisler.  I have large amounts of butter and parchment paper, because pie crust demands both, particularly if you want to complete the process with no nicks in the surface of your sanity.  After all, it's almost the holidays!  Time to make everything smooth, smooth, smooth for those Christmas cards you're sending out to 250 of your closest friends you don't even talk to anymore!

*clears throat*

Pie.  We were speaking of pie.

Here's what I'm looking at this year so far:

The New

Caramel-Pecan Pumpkin Pie
First and most importantly:  How do you pronounce the word "caramel"?  I say "CAR-mull," even though when I'm looking at it my eyes tell my brain that it should be "CARE-uh-mell."  This dichotomy causes great suffering to the word- and grammar-lover in me, but even so, I will fight to the death in insisting that it's "CAR-mull."  I just will.
I'm a very lukewarm pumpkin ingester; I mean, if you stick a piece of pumpkin pie in front of me you won't exactly have to force-feed it to my face, especially if it's loaded down with appropriate amounts of whipped cream, but if I have to choose between pumpkin pie and almost any other kind I will always choose almost any other kind.  Still, this is Thanksgiving we're talking about, and pumpkin pie feels kind of necessary, doesn't it?
So when I came across this recipe- complete with tempting photo- for Caramel-Pecan Pumpkin Pie in my trusty, beloved Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and it had the little "Best Loved" heart next to it, I knew it had to go on the menu.  The topping alone on the pie in the picture looks like something I'll have to keep myself from "sampling" until there's none left for the actual pie, and this pie counts as the traditional Thanksgiving dish, at least in my rosy little world.

The Trusted Favorite

French Silk Pie

This is a major favorite around our house.  It is rich, it is dense (insert inappropriate trophy wife/husband joke here), and if there's any way you can make it in the presence of those you will be feeding, DO THAT.  Something about the the step that instructs, "Place the saucepan [of boiling mixture] in a bowl of ice water, stirring occasionally, until the mixture stiffens and becomes hard to stir," seems to impress people, even if in practice it's just not that hard.  If you can boil chocolate and you can dump ice in a bowl, you can make this pie.  Just channel all those inspirational posters featuring mountains and sunsets and "BELIEVE IN YOURSELF," although what the harsh nature of the wilderness has to do with self-esteem, I do not know.  What I do know is that your guests/Eaters of Pie will be grateful if you serve this up.  

One thing I will say about this pie:  It does not need the whipped cream that BHG suggests you top it with, and I do not advise that lightly, because when it comes to my Sacred Whipped Cream Beliefs, I am normally quite firmly in the "More is More" camp.  I've dished this French Silk Pie up to a number of people over the years now, and the unanimous opinion is this:  It does not need whipped cream.  This is a pie best left unadorned and unspoiled, which is the opposite of how I feel about the interior of our house during the holidays, meaning Christmas is about to EXPLODE all over this house and I couldn't be happier about it.

The Undecided

Lemon Meringue Pie

While I love Lemon Meringue Pie, the honest reason I want to make this is that I've struggled to achieve that pretty meringue that isn't either weeping or beading, and this makes me cantankerous and obstinate, because meringue is not the boss of me, I am the boss of meringue.  This may not be the right attitude to model for our children, however, especially Adelaide, who is eager to get in the kitchen and get to pie-making.

Berry Fruit Pie

This one is attractive because last year Adelaide mastered the Art of the Pecan Pie, so I'm trying to find a pie recipe that will 1) Be simple enough for her to execute for the most part on her own, 2) Won't be so simple she'll be offended and just sure that I'm infantilizing her, but 3) Still tasty.  This recipe has only four ingredients, aside from the crust, and the directions seem well within her abilities.  

Sour Cream Raisin Pie

I am both attracted and repelled by the name of this pie.  I think the attraction stems from the delightfully old-fashioned feeling I get from it, the revulsion from the suspicion that this pie could be legitimately disgusting.  Or delicious!  

For Consumption Before Thanksgiving Because Sharing is Hard

Apple Pie 

I'm more or less being forced to make this pie because I still have a big pile of apples from a friend sitting on my kitchen counter, and I don't want to be wasteful, do I?  

I've shown you this picture at least half a dozen times, already, but I don't care:  It has Adelaide and it has pie- a pie that Adelaide made, in fact- and she is cute as a button.  Don't tell her I said that.

Obviously we won't be eating six pies throughout the remainder of November; these are just the front-runners, from which I'll choose... probably three.  Trying to hold myself to three.  Well, three plus the apple pie.  That one doesn't count.  Because... apples are healthy?