Policing the Pie

I was going to cheat today.

I was going to commit pie blasphemy and make fake pie.

Even though it technically has something that lines a aluminum tin, has filling and was going to be topped with Cool Whip. It wouldn't be real pie.

I had plans on making chocolate fake pie. The kind of pie with a pre-made Oreo cookie crust with chocolate pudding and frosted with an equally fake whipped cream.

I am so ashamed.

But in me defense, or at least what I told myself, is that I could make fake pie. It has and continues to be so darn hot, that real pie baking was out of the question. I could make fake pudding pie and try to pass it off as the real deal. I kept telling myself when it cools down, I will make the real stuff. I will break out the pastry cutter and rolling pin and make the traditional homemade two crusted pastry deliciousness known as pie. Shameful, utterly shameful now that I think more about it.

I like pie. I more than like pie, I love pie. I am a pie snob. I want my pie homemade. I want my pie to be able to have a scoop of ice cream, warm from the oven and filling the house with that pie smell. I have never met a pie I didn't like, well I haven't met green tomato preserve  pie yet, that may not go so well, but I like pie.

I remember as a kid my grandmother making weird pies. She made gooseberry, mincemeat, raisin, and custard pies with coconut. Not the typical apple and cherry pies that my mom made. But I ate grandma's pie and loved them. As we grew older, grandma's made from scratch pies became replaced with "Mrs. Smith". We often would joke about those Mrs. Smith pre-made frozen pies, and we ate them, but secretly we yearned for the old fashioned goodness of real pie.

My mom made real pie when we were kids, but she soon became like grandma and started buying Mrs. Smith pies as well. She still does for the holidays unless I put my foot down and will volunteer to make real pies. A big part of me rebels about frozen bought pies for holidays. If there was any time in the world to celebrate with real pie, it is at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Of all the nerve, those fake frozen pies.

So today as I was making my chocolate pudding for my ice box pies, it hit me. I was such a Benedict Arnold. I wasn't buying frozen pre-made pies, but I might as well have been. I was assembling pre-made crusts with homemade chocolate pudding and calling it pie. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle for me.

The worst thing about it was the pies weren't even going to be for me. They were going to be for the neighbor who had helped me out one day. He never will take any pay but he will take pie. He loves pie, everybody loves pie.

Oh sure, I was making real pudding, not the boxed kind. I was separating and tempering those eggs for that chocolaty custard filling but it's those other bits of the pie that were fake. I tried to tell myself I could give them the gift of chocolate ice box pie and then later on, make him a real peach or apple pie. Maybe even make him TWO pies, one of each and maybe even make another EXTRA pie for a different neighbor who is always so nice. Yes, I would make a whole bunch of real pies with flaky crusts and bubbling apple, peach, and cinnamon goodness. After all, one can't just make one real pie if you are going to all the work to make pie crust. It's as easy to make 2 pies than to make one. What's another pie or two or three?

So I put my chocolate pudding in the fridge to cool with cling wrap gently placed on top to avoid that dreaded pudding skin and contemplated real vs. fake pie. I still haven't decided if I will go ahead and make the fake pies and then later make real pies, or if I should just skip being a fake and make the real deal.

I could run to town one day next week and get some peaches and in the early hours one morning, roll out some pie crust and bake a few pies before it gets too hot by afternoon. It wouldn't kill me to suffer through a day or morning in a hot kitchen to make the real McCoy.

There is the matter of that chocolate pudding though. And I do already have the fake cookie pie shell and the cool whip. If I didn't make pie for the neighbors, would I then be forced to have my pie and eat it too?.... Hmmm decisions, decision, do I or don't I? Real vs. fake?

It's a big decision. It's a slippery slope that pie making. I can feel myself going the way of Mrs. Smith's and abandoning my own pie principles. The more I think about it, the more I feel like I need to make real pie. My conscious has gotten the better of me and demands real pie.

Or it could be in cahoots with my tummy, and is thinking about having it's own slice of chocolate pudding ice box  pie...