Grandma's chocolate pie

There are pies and then there is my grandma’s chocolate pie.

It’s a luscious chocolate custard resting on a flaky, almost salty crust, topped with a springy meringue. For me, it’s la pièce de résistance and whether times are good or times are bad, it’s always welcome and appropriate.

I can’t remember a period in my life when it wasn’t my favorite dessert. My family has always been pie eaters, but we fall into several camps: there are the peach enthusiasts, the pecan lovers and then there are those of us who prefer the chocolate. My mom loves the chocolate best so that’s probably why it’s my (and my brother’s) favorite as well. But that doesn’t explain why Mom doesn’t make it. Nope, only one person can make my grandma’s chocolate pie and that’s my grandma.

When I went to visit her in August, I told her I wanted a chocolate pie. That was no surprise—I always insist that she bake me a chocolate pie when I visit. But this time I was determined to document her making it so I could try and recreate it back here in NY.

She had all the ingredients spread out on the counter and then I saw it: her recipe card. I hadn’t noticed before that she uses a recipe—I always assumed she baked chocolate pie from memory. The old card was yellowing and splattered with spots. And it called for Oleo as one of the ingredients. What a treasure! Before we started baking, I decided to take a photo of the card and as the light was waning in the kitchen, I took the card out to the front porch to shoot it before she started cooking.
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In the kitchen with Everyday Food

Last Wednesday, I had an excellent day. As I’m sure you know by now, two of my blog buddies, Matt from Matt Bites and Deb from Smitten Kitchen were on the Martha Stewart show and I was fortunate to have a ticket to see them live from the studio audience.

Now, what you don’t know is that the last time I saw Martha Stewart’s show live was with my mother three years ago. If you glance over at the archives, you’ll notice that I started this blog in September 2005 but I didn’t post much until the summer of 2006. This is because I spent that period dealing with some awful stuff in my life, which, strangely enough, began the day I last saw Martha Stewart (though it wasn’t her show’s fault I went through a rough period—I swear!).

When I started blogging again in August 2006, I was still a little sad but this blog helped me heal. Not to mention I made a ton of great friends along the way. So while the blog has archives from that period of eleven months, I’ve always felt that my blog’s official birthday was August 2006. I guess you could say it was born prematurely.

But what does this have to do with Martha Stewart? Well, that day three years ago when I was sitting in the studio audience, I had no idea that someday I’d be sitting in the audience again cheering on my friends as they baked alfajores or chatted about blogging with Martha. Nor did I know that I would have the opportunity to spend the afternoon in the Everyday Food test kitchen. Of course, you never know what the future may hold for you, but the next time I feel a little down I’ll just remember this happy turn of events—there’s always something wonderful on the horizon and everything usually comes full circle.

Enough about me, however—you want to know what it’s like in the Everyday Food kitchen. At the taping, I met one of my Twitter pals—Everday Food editor in chief Deb Puchalla a.k.a. @everydayfooddeb—and she invited me to join some of my fellow bloggers at the test kitchen after the show. We were sworn to secrecy about what they were cooking (did you know that they work almost a year in advance of publication?) but what I can say is that it is one of the most inspiring places I’ve been to in New York City.
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Hurricane Ike and some peanut butter

My brother Jacob was married in Portland, Oregon last weekend. A joyous occasion, definitely, but there was a hint of anxiousness as Hurricane Ike barged into our hometown of Houston, Texas. We were relieved that Mom and Jacob’s best man had flown out to Portland before they closed the airports on Friday, but it didn’t mitigate the sadness we felt as we watched the destruction on TV.

I’ve only been in one hurricane in my life—Hurricane Alicia back in 1983. That was the last big one to hit Houston and much of the news coverage referenced the parallels in the two storms’ aftermaths. Beyond flooded streets, there were also piles of glass, stacks of tree limbs and wrecked buildings. But even if you’re spared all of that destruction, no one is spared the loss of electricity.

Besides riding my bike around the neighborhood during the eye of Alicia, having no power for a few days (in the hot, humid summer no less) is my biggest recollection of that storm, and that meant lots of card games and nap times. But what did we eat? I couldn’t remember, so I asked my dad. He said peanut butter.

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Recipe for a trip to Texas

I recently went to Texas to look at real estate and visit family, as many of you may know. What you don’t know is that I made up most of my ambitious itinerary as I went along, which had me zigzagging across the state with little time to breathe, let alone properly relax.

My aunt has a saying, “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” My travel plans were cobbled together at the last minute, and while my spontaneity prevented me from seeing and doing everything I wanted to, I would not say that my trip was a complete failure. 

I ate heartily, took hundreds of mouth-watering photos, had the pleasure of watching the Democratic convention with two of my favorite Democrats—my grandma and my mom—and managed to both make and see good friends. That said, I’ve made a list of guidelines to follow next time I travel, just to make the trip a little less stressful.

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