Pie ranks right up there as a favorite dessert so the excuse afforded every year to make one on March 14, Pi(e) Day, seems valid to me. As I struggled with my crust which wasn’t cooperating this year, I thought about another pie in the Butler family stories that didn’t turn out quite as expected.
Daughter-in-law Stephannie (name spelled correctly with two “n’s” and with her permission to use it) was fairly new to the family. Al and I had been out to visit in Arizona. Combining her own experimentation with the fare she learned to cook with her Oklahoma grandmother, meals had been superb. We came home singing the praises of this great cook that Murray had married.
Not too long afterwards, our entire family rented a house for a vacation in Colorado with the deal that each nuclear family would make dinner one night. With our advance publicity, everybody had anticipated Steph’s turn, especially the coconut cream pie that was her father-in-law’s favorite. We smelled the aromas all day and watched as the pie came out of the oven, the meringue piled nice and high with just the right amount of brown on the swirly tips. We had only to wait until it cooled and set.
That was some wait. Nobody considered the altitude aspect. We waited and waited. Setting did not happen. Ultimately, Steph was wishing we had left off the hype about her cooking even though the meal had been delicious. But the Butler family is adaptable. We got spoons and had a tasty coconut cream soup with bits of flaky crust, topped with melt-in-your-mouth meringue. Like Jack Sprat and his wife, we licked the platter clean.
What did Steph get out of this? Just her first starring role for a story in the Butler family lore.