Caramelized Pear Pie

This is my blog.

It is the record of my life right now.

Journal-keeping is something I have done, and encouraged others to do, for much of my life. Mostly because our minds play tricks on us as time passes, causing memory and imagination to get all tangled up together. Capturing images and impressions while they are still fresh improves our chances of recalling thoughts and events later in time with more reliable clarity and accuracy than that afforded by merely memory alone. Our amazing brains have enough to do just keeping our amazing bodies functioning every day. Should we require them to store and recall everything, too?

Well, yes.

But journal-keeping, or blogging, isn't a bad way to keep track of things in addition to using your brain.

So.

The kitchen has never been my favorite place in the house. I mean that in the most general sense. I have no particular quarrel with any particular kitchen. I just can't be bothered to follow a recipe precisely, let alone repeatedly. I am famous for short-cutting and substituting with close approximations if I am lacking the exact equipment or ingredient. I appreciate those good cooks who care enough to do it right, I am just not one of them. 

For a brief moment in the 1980s I lost my mind and determined to transform, in a single afternoon, an entire box of apples into frozen pies to last us through the winter. After hours of peeling and slicing, and wads of flour and shortening pie crust caking onto my hands and shoes and sleeves, I was cured of any lingering illusion that I might desire to embody the American Ideal of motherhood and apple pie. It was one or the other. And since I was already a mother, I gave up apple pie.

Forever.

I did not give up EATING apple pie. Just MAKING apple pie. I cannot recall ever making an apple pie from scratch since 1983.

I am not ashamed.

Today, however, for some inexplicable reason, I was possessed with a desire to tranform the abundance of pears on the kitchen counter into Caramelized Pear Pie. And, friends, I followed the recipe to the letter. I froze my bowl and beaters. I cut an obscene amount of butter into 1/4 inch squares. I sprinkled ice water on the flour and butter just enough for the dough to hang together when squeezed. I refrigerated the dough for 2 hours before baking. I did not improvise or invent a single creative step in the process.

And the heavens opened. The angels sang.

We enjoyed hot, sweet, buttery, caramelized Food of the Gods. Really delicious.

I made it all by myself. From scratch.

So let it be written that I baked pie in 1983. And 2010. And perhaps I will again in ten years or so. Pie-making is a serious commitment, folks. I remembered that again today. And though I learned I can follow a recipe to the letter with beautiful results if I put my mind to it, I am still not willing to invest so much time and energy in food preparation more than once or twice a decade.