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It has been a shockingly long time since I posted anything...so long, in fact, that I had actually forgotten that I had a blog. I guess it just hasn't been on my radar.
I have been cooking and baking, but not writing about it. I think I figure that no one reads it, so why bother? Of course, in studying Social Media, I have learned that a big part of getting followers involves BECOMING a follower of other pages, being active in commenting on those other blogs, and actually being active in blogging....so I receive failing marks on all counts.
Here's something I can tell you about....The Great Strawberry Pie Disaster of 2012 (which, for the record, is very similar to The Great Strawberry Pie Disasters of 2011, 2010, and 2009....)
My maternal grandmother was a saint...she just was. She was one of the most patient, kind, and loving people I have ever met. She loved spending time with her grandchildren (just my brother and I), and she doted on us without spoiling us rotten. She could also grow anything, cook anything, and bake anything....and that was in her blood.
She grew up on a farm in the small community of Banks, Ontario. She was the only surviving girl out of 5 children. While growing up, she was expected to help out with the farm chores, but as she hated working in the barn, she decided that helping in the kitchen was going to be her chosen method of helping out. That worked out well, because her mother was also the cook/bake anything type...and she did it on an old wood-stove to boot!
The only time I ever saw my nan have an incident in the kitchen was during a soft summer day when I was about 8, and she was baking a strawberry pie which ran over slightly....and started a fire in the oven. Without any sense of panic, she extinguished the flames with a dash of baking soda, then went back to playing cards with her grand-daughter. The end result of that pie? Delicious, of course...but not only delicious...also perfectly thickened.
She used no hard and fast recipe for pies...it was all by eye. This is not a skill that has passed down through the wonders of genetics. She used flour as a thickener for her pies, and had that skill of adjusting depending on the juiciness of the fruit. My mom and I have each made attempts at baking strawberry pies. She tried flour - soupy, cloudy disaster. She tried cornstarch - soupy disaster with some jelly-like areas. I tried potato starch (as I use in my peach pie) - soupy disaster with odd mouth-feel.
Strawberry season is over now, but I know that next season, I will try again...and again...and I'm sure, again after that....but I'm not sure if it's because of my need to finally beat the pie after years of it easily beating me, or if it's the desire to recreate my grandmother's pie from all those years ago.
She died in 1989 of ALS (better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease), a heartless killer that, for some reason, doesn't get the attention (and fundraising) of cancer or heart disease.
I still think of her when I'm in her kitchen...every time I roll out tea biscuit dough made from her recipe...every time I taste canned peaches or pears and reminisce about the heady summer days of filling tall glass sealers with fresh fruit that was picked at its prime, and preserved so we could enjoy it all winter long...and every time I peek at the oven's contents through the glass in the door, hoping that what comes out of it will be even remotely as good as the food she prepared for her family for all those years, and that I've put as much love into it as I know she did.
It has been a shockingly long time since I posted anything...so long, in fact, that I had actually forgotten that I had a blog. I guess it just hasn't been on my radar.
I have been cooking and baking, but not writing about it. I think I figure that no one reads it, so why bother? Of course, in studying Social Media, I have learned that a big part of getting followers involves BECOMING a follower of other pages, being active in commenting on those other blogs, and actually being active in blogging....so I receive failing marks on all counts.
Here's something I can tell you about....The Great Strawberry Pie Disaster of 2012 (which, for the record, is very similar to The Great Strawberry Pie Disasters of 2011, 2010, and 2009....)
My maternal grandmother was a saint...she just was. She was one of the most patient, kind, and loving people I have ever met. She loved spending time with her grandchildren (just my brother and I), and she doted on us without spoiling us rotten. She could also grow anything, cook anything, and bake anything....and that was in her blood.
She grew up on a farm in the small community of Banks, Ontario. She was the only surviving girl out of 5 children. While growing up, she was expected to help out with the farm chores, but as she hated working in the barn, she decided that helping in the kitchen was going to be her chosen method of helping out. That worked out well, because her mother was also the cook/bake anything type...and she did it on an old wood-stove to boot!
The only time I ever saw my nan have an incident in the kitchen was during a soft summer day when I was about 8, and she was baking a strawberry pie which ran over slightly....and started a fire in the oven. Without any sense of panic, she extinguished the flames with a dash of baking soda, then went back to playing cards with her grand-daughter. The end result of that pie? Delicious, of course...but not only delicious...also perfectly thickened.
She used no hard and fast recipe for pies...it was all by eye. This is not a skill that has passed down through the wonders of genetics. She used flour as a thickener for her pies, and had that skill of adjusting depending on the juiciness of the fruit. My mom and I have each made attempts at baking strawberry pies. She tried flour - soupy, cloudy disaster. She tried cornstarch - soupy disaster with some jelly-like areas. I tried potato starch (as I use in my peach pie) - soupy disaster with odd mouth-feel.
Strawberry season is over now, but I know that next season, I will try again...and again...and I'm sure, again after that....but I'm not sure if it's because of my need to finally beat the pie after years of it easily beating me, or if it's the desire to recreate my grandmother's pie from all those years ago.
She died in 1989 of ALS (better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease), a heartless killer that, for some reason, doesn't get the attention (and fundraising) of cancer or heart disease.
I still think of her when I'm in her kitchen...every time I roll out tea biscuit dough made from her recipe...every time I taste canned peaches or pears and reminisce about the heady summer days of filling tall glass sealers with fresh fruit that was picked at its prime, and preserved so we could enjoy it all winter long...and every time I peek at the oven's contents through the glass in the door, hoping that what comes out of it will be even remotely as good as the food she prepared for her family for all those years, and that I've put as much love into it as I know she did.
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