November 3, 2002
Dear Diary:

While there are many verbs that can be happily associated with cooking, I think I speak for us all when I say that "coagulate" is not one of them.

So it was with some horror that I watched as my lemon pie filling refused to thicken and instead proceeded to coagulate yesterday afternoon, forming weird little clots. This would be the filling for the two pies I had promised for our little community's fall harvest supper. The fall harvest supper that was to take place two hours from when I began assembling the pies.

I tried beating the clots. I tried smushing them through a strainer. I got rid of some of them, but the filling stubbornly refused to thicken. I made a cornstarch paste to thicken it, and slowly dribbled it in, whisking to mix it in well. The paste promptly coagulated, adding new improved white clots to the yellow clots of the original filling.

Uh oh.

I live a half hour drive from the nearest store. By the time I got to the store, purchased a new filling, and got home well over a precious hour of my two hour window would be gone.

I started to hyperventilate.

I asked myself, "What Would Nigella Do?"

Well, Nigella would lean forward and display that magnificent cleavage of hers, which would promptly take everyone's mind completely off whatever it was they might be eating. Being somewhat chestally challenged myself, I realized that pulling a Nigella was out of the question.

"I'm buying ice cream," I grimly announced to the spousal unit. He rolled his eyes. Homemade desserts are part of the draw of the dinner, which raises money for projects for the kids who live here. Ice cream does not count as a homemade dessert, he reminded me.

Okay, time for Plan C.

Plan C involves phoning my mom-in-law, being careful not to sob audibly, and hoping against hope that she has a back-up pie filling.

Now the thing about my mom-in-law is that she has a thing about food. She has a profound need to make sure that there is lots of food around her. Squirrels stand to attention and snap off a military salute to my mom-in-law each time she passes because they are totally in awe of the size of her food cache.

The question was, would that cache include pie fillings?

It was stupid of me to even wonder.

She sent up not one, not two but THREE different pie fillings. Yes, a 79-year-old woman living by herself has cupboards so terrifically well stocked that should we ever be hit by some sort of natural disaster there is probably enough food there to keep the whole village going for months.

And while I tease her about it, more than once that's saved my neck.

The community supper was a terrific success this year. We fed well over 200 people turkey with all the fixings, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots and then lavished homemade desserts on them.

And thanks to my mom-in-law's need to squirrel away huge caches of food, they were spared horror of coagulated lemon meringue pie.

Just like the Cuban Missile Crisis, they never knew how close they came.

--Marn

P.S. If you're one of my three loyal readers and you have a Trading Card, don't forget to let me know so I can add you to my collection, 'kay?

Old Drivel - New Drivel


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Want to delve into my sordid past?
She's mellllllllllllllting - Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 - Back off, Buble - Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - Dispersed - Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 - Nothing comes for free - Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 - None of her business - Friday, Nov. 04, 2011 -


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