Spring Break: The Curse

I know everyone has been dying in anticipation to see the pie that Grandma helped me make at the beach....but first you have to hear the story.

As you know my grandma is considered to be an expert in pie making, so she wanted to make sure to embark her knowledge and skills on me since apparently the pie making skill skips a generation (i.e. I have never seen my own mother make a pie). So, during our Spring Break trip to OIB we made it a mission to make the perfect chocolate pie. But as every good pie maker knows, to make a delicious pie you must have a nice pie plate...

Turns out the beach house does not have one of those, so our new mission before our mission was to find a pie plate. We could have taken the easy way out and just gone over to Wal-mart, but we decided to thrift. We searched and searched...and still no pie plates to be found; however, along the way my mom and grandma found a lot of other things. Mom came back with a whole set of dishes (going against my advice that she has no room for it), some "R" glasses (I approved), a $1 amber colored bowl (complete with dusty grapes), and I'm sure there was something else I just cannot remember. Grandma came back with a pot and a painting of a boat. I came back empty handed and remorseful that our townhouse cannot fit anything else in in it.

Anyway, during our last and final stop, Grandma found a Pyrex pie plate, just like her mom's:

We felt good and ready to get started. We took out all the necessary items we needed and I began taking notes. Turns out Grandma did not follow the recipe from her book, so I had to add some extra notes. For example, you are supposed to poke a fork on the bottom of your crust to help it from getting too fluffy (I think?) and you need to add a little bit more of ____ than what it says, etc...

Grandma inspecting my work....

and giving me a lot of directions...

mom needed to learn a thing or 2 as well

Everything was smooth sailing and ready to go. We put the pie in the oven and then set inside the fridge for a couple of hours.

After that, it was time for the meringue, the moment we had all been waiting for. We made sure our egg whites were room temp and beat them, with some sugar and vanilla, on high. I finally made meringue with peaks!

once again Grandma is inspecting in the background...

Praise the Lord! Look at that pie...

After all our hard work, we had to take a picture!

Meanwhile, dad and grandpa were getting our feast prepared! We had steaks, salad and potatoes. It was delicious.

After dinner it was time for the big reveal and to cut the pie. We had been waiting in anticipation all day and the odds seemed to be in our favor. This pie, that I had been trying to make for 2 years, would finally be one worth eating. I could finally tell my husband that I was the type of wife that could make him proud. I could finally be the family member to bring a pie to holiday dinners and not have to lie to them about whether I made it or not. We got out the plates and were ready to go...

and quickly realized we needed bowls. and according to my grandpa, maybe even some straws...


yep, the pie making curse even affected my own grandmother's ability to teach me how to make a pie. She said that in all her years she has never had something like this happen before. Maybe it was the pressure? Not being used to a different oven? Or maybe it is my curse...

So I may not be the best baker, but I am motivated. I will try until I get this right...

My goal is to practice a few more times and then be able to serve an amazing piece of pie to my grandparents when they come visit in May. wish me luck!