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E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
Ode to Pie

Before I was married, I took no small measure of pride in my cooking. Perhaps my efforts were not worthy of mention in a Michelin Guide of Chandler fine dining, but it was a source of self-satisfaction.

Since those days, I have lost my grip on the kitchen. My wife, fueled by inspiration from The Food Network and a sense of innovation worthy of a mad scientist, has launched continued assaults on my culinary domain. Over the past few years, I have suffered continued defeats to the point where my rout is almost complete in that I have been laregely exiled outside to the grill. Make no mistake, one can do wonders with a simple Weber; however such a device lacks both the necessary electrical outlets and space for cutting boards.

I am left with only one redoubt in the kitchen, one reminder left of what had been. However much like the Byzantine Empire relegated to the city of Constantinople awash in a sea of Turks, my one island is very beautiful and in its magnificence almost equals all that was lost...

... that island is pie.

During the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas stretch of holidays, when guests arrive for summer pool party, when the wife throws a gathering for her prayer group... then I'm summoned back into the kitchen to perform pie. Yesterday I served up a blackberry crumble with ginger and cardamom; the fruit soaked overnight in cassis. I added a pumpkin with some cream cheese and a bit of Bailey's mixed in.

It's all fun now but when Christmas finally comes and passes and pie no longer needed, my kitchen talents will again be placed into hibernation, to sleep and perchance to dream.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 6:56 AM