PIE IN THE SKY

Prior to the holidays I took a pie baking class through the Santa Rosa Rec. Now, on the face of it, you might think this was a good thing. You might even be tempted to say, “Good for you, Jeff. You are finally making some constructive use of your overly abundant free time. Maybe you are even going to, at long last, not make a total hash of this whole retirement thing.”
But, alas, you would be mistaken. For you would not be giving full weight to my obsessive personality, which can take even the most benign subject – like, say, pie baking – and make an evil of it.
I was overcome with the need to make the perfect pie crust. You would be surprised how difficult this is, even with expert instruction – in the form of the baking class – from a veteran pastry chef.
Now if you could make the pies in some magical kitchen where once they were baked, tasted and then they miraculously disappeared, then that would be what we call a good thing. But the kitchen at 4714 Muirfield Court is not a place where the paranormal occurs. When I bake a pie it does not vanish after one bite. No, it sits on the counter or in the fridge and it says, “Eat me.”
And because I was raised by Depression-era parents who convinced me it was sinful to let even one bite of food go to waste – because, in Sub Saharan Africa, don’t you know, there are Pagan Babies with their distended stomachs sticking out in front of them like a man with a basketball under a tee-shirt, and they are starving, and if I throw away even one morsel of food, then I am as good as killing them.
Ask anybody who went to Catholic school in the 50’s and they will confirm that this is the truth. I can still see those Pagan Babies with their basketball stomachs and their protruding belly buttons and their stick-like arms and legs. And, let me tell you, I finish everything on my plate, ‘cause I don’t want to be the one responsible for killing them.
Apple pie, berry pie, French apple-almond tort, pumpkin pie, peach pie.
I baked ‘em all, and my poor wife and I had to eat ‘em all. We were inviting people over just on the off chance we could send them home with a pie. We were eating pie for lunch. I was having a slice with my morning tea. We were eating pie at 9 p.m while watching television.
And then bolting upright in the middle of the night to dash to the bathroom and hurriedly shovel Tums in our mouths in the vain hope of reversing the acid reflux the late night slice of pie had induced.
We were simply bilious with pie.
I was feeding pie to my daughter when the wife was gone. I was feeding pie to Kebu to the point where she was following me around the house with an alert expression on her face and a look in her eyes that said; “You know what I think this would be a good time to do? Have another piece of pie!”
This lasted until the poor dog had midnight diarrhea – and wasn’t that some fun taking her out back in the windy rain 6 times between midnight and five a.m!
So not only did I make myself and my wife sick, I made the Akita sick. All because I couldn’t stop myself from baking pies. I gained 9 lbs over the holidays. I began to look like a big, fat piece of chunky apple pie.
So, no, the next time you come over to our house, we won’t be serving pie for desert. For, like a heroin addict, I can’t stop at one pie. At this point I am just trying to take it one pie-less day at a time.
But I have found a substitute. I am perfecting the perfect Italian biscotti. And Kebu is quite impressed with the first few batches.