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Semi-doomed pies
Nov. 27th, 2019 11:41 pmMy pre-Thanksgiving adventures are very mild and tame compared to what is going on on my reading page. But I've often posted about making pies for holidays here, so I shall do so again.
Before the day of pie-making, I used up Monday going to St. Louis Park to see a dermatologist. The GP whom I saw on the previous Friday (my own doctor not being available until December 10) was baffled by the rash I had come in to have dealt with, and so referred me. The dermatologist took one look, and after saying comfortingly, "Oh, boo!" said I had a yeast infection of the skin, which was quite normal, which was good news because YAY NORMAL but bad news because normal is hard to treat. I have some nice cream (look, Marissa, the dermatologist did as you suggested!) and it's working fine, but this took up a lot of the day, what with one thing and another, including a realization that I had not eaten enough breakfast (( mostly can't, as my body is not interested in food until I have been up for several hours), and had forgotten both my emergency candy and the Luna bar I usually bring along for such occasions. The previous Luna bar had actually been dragged along for numerous occasions when I didn't need it, but I ate it, though it was somewhat squashed, on Friday after the rash suddenly became a Mystery. Anyway, I forgot to replace the Luna bar, and so found myself in a convenient McDonald's eating a fish filet sandwich and an order of fries.
This was the second time in my life I had had this meal. The first was when Eric and I went camping at Whitewater State Park in May. We lost the GPS signal, encountered a detour, and then encountered a prank, consisting of some wag or other swapping out the sign that said "Detour" with the one that said "Road Closed." We were very late getting to our campsite. With moderate clumsy help from me, Eric put up the tent in the near-dark -- the campsite is in a lovely valley, so as far as it was concerned the sun had set before the time provided by Weather Underground -- and we chucked our bedding into it and rushed off to Winona to have a much-needed dinner. There is a Green Mill in Winona, open at least an hour later than we arrived at it. But it was closed. We arrived at the drive-through window of a nearby McDonald's in the nick of time and had fish sandwiches -- Eric knew to ask them to leave off the cheese, whereas I have never gotten used to the idea that anybody would put cheese on a fish sandwich in the first place, although Culver's also does it -- and large orders of fries and Sprite because we were famished. It all tasted a lot better than I expected. When I bit into my sandwich I was instantly back in that weirdly-lit, empty parking lot, the mysteriously-closed Green Mill looming off to one side, and behind us and before us a campsite just a short walk from the Whitewater River, where we would have very good stargazing the following night, a gorgeous walk along a trout stream, replete with four-spotted skimmers and red-breasted grosbeaks, and no mosquitoes.
Less nostalgia awaited me after that. On Tuesday I'd meant to clean the parts of the house that guests would be in, but the looming winter storm made me go out and take a good look at the south side of the house. That is the side with a sidewalk on it. The snow blower lives in the garage, and if it is to be taken to the front to clear the sidewalk the city is most fussed about, not to mention the one that gets us to that sidewalk and the street where some household cars are generally parked, the snow blower must traverse that sidewalk.
At some cursed moment in the past, some previous neighbors to the north planted a row of Japanese knotweed along their foundation. Its main goal, aside, perhaps, from growing into their basement and devouring them, is to take over our side yard. Two sets of neighbors have dug up the Japanese knotweed and taken it away in wheelbarrows like the guests at Bilbo's party, after which they put down black plastic and gravel and probably a lot of scrolls full of imprecations against Japanese knotweed. After the second of these operations, I planted a bunch of interesting stuff in the side yard.
What is there now is Japanese knotweed, along with a volunteer black walnut that is arm-wrestling the knotweed for Most Allelopathic Plant Going, and a tentative substrate of spreading spiral goldenrod, daisy fleabane, and creeping bellflower. But it's mostly Japanese knotweed.
I did essentially no yard work this season. We had about a dozen monarchs in our yard in the fall, clinging to the tree branches and floating about in the last of the sunlight one afternoon, but I don't know if my neglect was the cause. We had a lot of meadowhawks and damselflies, too. In any case, the knotweed had gleefully grown quite tall and made passage along the south side of the house a dicey proposition.
So I spent Tuesday cutting and breaking off the hollow stems of the knotweed, and also cutting back some trees that want to set up housekeeping in the flower beds on that side of the house; what was already in them was fond of sun, which it gets when there is no or even just less knotweed.
I had to do this a couple of years ago, and happily made a path for myself and was about to go inside, full of righteous cheer, when I glanced up and realized that the person most likely to be operating the snow blower was David, who is six foot two; and the next most likely person to be operating it was Lydy, who is about five foot seven. I'd cleared the plants right next to the sidewalk; but the next row back made a lovely overarching canopy that I could walk under but taller people could not. This time I knew to remove two rows.
This all took about three hours, after which cleaning the house was not really a likely sequel.
So today I made a batch of cranberry sauce, a mince pie (filling out of a jar), and an apple pie. Pumpkin has kind of fallen out of the rotation, but I might put it back in for Christmas.
The crust was weird. It was a bit too salty and had a texture that I felt I should recognize, but did not, until the pies were baking. The crust was too short. What makes these two things happen? Using too little flour. What else does having extra-short crust cause? I will tell you! It causes the edges of the crust to burn even if you have irritably affixed bits of aluminum foil to said edge for the first fifteen or twenty minutes of baking. A real baker would have tossed everything and made a new batch of crust and a new batch of apple filling, but I was pretty much out of steam and still had to clean the house.
I'm thinking of making some gingerbread or tahini cake or something for people who don't care for the pie crust, but that will have to happen tomorrow.
While the pies were cooling, I did such cleaning as I could. There are places to sit, spots to set one's drink down, and a serious reduction in cat hair, cobwebs, and weird objects that nobody knows what to do with. We will draw a veil over the two enormous boxes from Chewy in which six bags of cat litter arrived at the worst possible time. People can set their drinks on those as well.
I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week in whatever manner suits you.
Pamela
Before the day of pie-making, I used up Monday going to St. Louis Park to see a dermatologist. The GP whom I saw on the previous Friday (my own doctor not being available until December 10) was baffled by the rash I had come in to have dealt with, and so referred me. The dermatologist took one look, and after saying comfortingly, "Oh, boo!" said I had a yeast infection of the skin, which was quite normal, which was good news because YAY NORMAL but bad news because normal is hard to treat. I have some nice cream (look, Marissa, the dermatologist did as you suggested!) and it's working fine, but this took up a lot of the day, what with one thing and another, including a realization that I had not eaten enough breakfast (( mostly can't, as my body is not interested in food until I have been up for several hours), and had forgotten both my emergency candy and the Luna bar I usually bring along for such occasions. The previous Luna bar had actually been dragged along for numerous occasions when I didn't need it, but I ate it, though it was somewhat squashed, on Friday after the rash suddenly became a Mystery. Anyway, I forgot to replace the Luna bar, and so found myself in a convenient McDonald's eating a fish filet sandwich and an order of fries.
This was the second time in my life I had had this meal. The first was when Eric and I went camping at Whitewater State Park in May. We lost the GPS signal, encountered a detour, and then encountered a prank, consisting of some wag or other swapping out the sign that said "Detour" with the one that said "Road Closed." We were very late getting to our campsite. With moderate clumsy help from me, Eric put up the tent in the near-dark -- the campsite is in a lovely valley, so as far as it was concerned the sun had set before the time provided by Weather Underground -- and we chucked our bedding into it and rushed off to Winona to have a much-needed dinner. There is a Green Mill in Winona, open at least an hour later than we arrived at it. But it was closed. We arrived at the drive-through window of a nearby McDonald's in the nick of time and had fish sandwiches -- Eric knew to ask them to leave off the cheese, whereas I have never gotten used to the idea that anybody would put cheese on a fish sandwich in the first place, although Culver's also does it -- and large orders of fries and Sprite because we were famished. It all tasted a lot better than I expected. When I bit into my sandwich I was instantly back in that weirdly-lit, empty parking lot, the mysteriously-closed Green Mill looming off to one side, and behind us and before us a campsite just a short walk from the Whitewater River, where we would have very good stargazing the following night, a gorgeous walk along a trout stream, replete with four-spotted skimmers and red-breasted grosbeaks, and no mosquitoes.
Less nostalgia awaited me after that. On Tuesday I'd meant to clean the parts of the house that guests would be in, but the looming winter storm made me go out and take a good look at the south side of the house. That is the side with a sidewalk on it. The snow blower lives in the garage, and if it is to be taken to the front to clear the sidewalk the city is most fussed about, not to mention the one that gets us to that sidewalk and the street where some household cars are generally parked, the snow blower must traverse that sidewalk.
At some cursed moment in the past, some previous neighbors to the north planted a row of Japanese knotweed along their foundation. Its main goal, aside, perhaps, from growing into their basement and devouring them, is to take over our side yard. Two sets of neighbors have dug up the Japanese knotweed and taken it away in wheelbarrows like the guests at Bilbo's party, after which they put down black plastic and gravel and probably a lot of scrolls full of imprecations against Japanese knotweed. After the second of these operations, I planted a bunch of interesting stuff in the side yard.
What is there now is Japanese knotweed, along with a volunteer black walnut that is arm-wrestling the knotweed for Most Allelopathic Plant Going, and a tentative substrate of spreading spiral goldenrod, daisy fleabane, and creeping bellflower. But it's mostly Japanese knotweed.
I did essentially no yard work this season. We had about a dozen monarchs in our yard in the fall, clinging to the tree branches and floating about in the last of the sunlight one afternoon, but I don't know if my neglect was the cause. We had a lot of meadowhawks and damselflies, too. In any case, the knotweed had gleefully grown quite tall and made passage along the south side of the house a dicey proposition.
So I spent Tuesday cutting and breaking off the hollow stems of the knotweed, and also cutting back some trees that want to set up housekeeping in the flower beds on that side of the house; what was already in them was fond of sun, which it gets when there is no or even just less knotweed.
I had to do this a couple of years ago, and happily made a path for myself and was about to go inside, full of righteous cheer, when I glanced up and realized that the person most likely to be operating the snow blower was David, who is six foot two; and the next most likely person to be operating it was Lydy, who is about five foot seven. I'd cleared the plants right next to the sidewalk; but the next row back made a lovely overarching canopy that I could walk under but taller people could not. This time I knew to remove two rows.
This all took about three hours, after which cleaning the house was not really a likely sequel.
So today I made a batch of cranberry sauce, a mince pie (filling out of a jar), and an apple pie. Pumpkin has kind of fallen out of the rotation, but I might put it back in for Christmas.
The crust was weird. It was a bit too salty and had a texture that I felt I should recognize, but did not, until the pies were baking. The crust was too short. What makes these two things happen? Using too little flour. What else does having extra-short crust cause? I will tell you! It causes the edges of the crust to burn even if you have irritably affixed bits of aluminum foil to said edge for the first fifteen or twenty minutes of baking. A real baker would have tossed everything and made a new batch of crust and a new batch of apple filling, but I was pretty much out of steam and still had to clean the house.
I'm thinking of making some gingerbread or tahini cake or something for people who don't care for the pie crust, but that will have to happen tomorrow.
While the pies were cooling, I did such cleaning as I could. There are places to sit, spots to set one's drink down, and a serious reduction in cat hair, cobwebs, and weird objects that nobody knows what to do with. We will draw a veil over the two enormous boxes from Chewy in which six bags of cat litter arrived at the worst possible time. People can set their drinks on those as well.
I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week in whatever manner suits you.
Pamela
