Banana Cream Pie

My Life as a Frog

The summer of 1971 was a strange strange time, and not just because Richard Nixon was president.  It was also the summer that my older brother, Mark, convinced me that he was a warlock.   He wasn't a good and gentle Harry Potter.  Mark's vision of the wizarding world pretty much boiled down to one inexorable rule:  unless I did what he wanted, when he wanted, he would turn me into a frog.  Ribbit. In my defense, I was 7 and Bewitched was my favorite T.V. show.  It surely wasn't my fault that my 13-year-old brother was willing to mercilessly exploit my innocent imagination.  The time of the terror had begun. 

For weeks I was making two beds--his and mine.  Unwanted lima beans that usually would find their way to the floor for the dog were now scraped onto my plate with a menacing glare.  My tormentor knew no limits--he'd even shake me down for the dime my mother gave me for the ice cream truck.  I considered ratting him out, but in the end I feared that if I wasn't swimming with the fishes, I'd at least be perched on a lilly pad above their heads.   Better to lay low in silent suffering as I did his bidding. And then Mark did the unthinkable: he overplayed his hand.  He demanded that I give him my banana cream pie.

Banana cream pie was my first true love, and although it might likely be responsible for the cellulite on the back of my legs, it has never, ever, broken my heart.   Forget "I love you;" "banana cream pie" were the first 3 little words that caused my heart to race and swoon. Initially, banana cream pie was "company food,"--a dessert reserved for guests.  My mother would make it for a dinner party, and although I was banished to my bedroom during the adult festivities, once I heard the last echo of grown-up chatter, I would skulk into the kitchen for hopeful leftovers.  As time went by, I wizened up and starting asking that she make it for my birthday.  Out it would come, one glorious day each year, even festooned with flaming candles--the decadent creaminess of it mine, all mine.  Until the summer of 1971.  Like a crook whose discovered the perfect scam, Mark got greedy, and tried to extort my beloved pie. 

Oh, the injustice of it all.  Give up my banana cream pie or get turned into a frog?  It was beyond unfair, it was downright evil.  I was living in a totalitarian state even before I knew what that was.  The time had come to end the tyranny, to rise up, and challenge Big Brother.  I had to stand my ground.  Better to risk eternity as an amphibian than to suffer such deprivation.  I looked inward to summon all the courage I could muster, and like all kid sisters since the dawn of time, I screamed the one word that was to be my salvation that day, (and many more thereafter):  M-O-M-M-Y! 

I'm not sure what went through my mother's head when I threw myself into her protective arms screaming about frogs, warlocks, and magic.  No matter--my long national nightmare was over, even if Mark's had just begun.  After months of torture and blackmail I had my sweet revenge.  And just for the record--revenge IS a dish that tastes best cold--as cold, in fact, as banana cream pie.

Banana Cream Pie
By Mary C. Bailey

The Pie Crust

1.  Sift together, 1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour,  1 and 1/2 tsp sugar, and 1 tsp salt in an 8 or 9 inch pie pan.

2.  Combine:  1/2 cup vegetable oil,  2 Tbs milk in a measuring cup, and whip with a fork.  

3.  Pour all at once in center of flour mixture, and mix with a fork. Press evenly with fingers to line bottom and sides of the pan.

4.  Prick the entire crust, and bake in a hot oven at 425 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

Can you buy a pre-made store bought pie crust?  Sure.  But re-read this recipe--it is amazingly easy, and this pie crust comes out tasting like a giant shortbread cookie. The Pillsbury Dough Boy may be cute, but he's no match for this crust.

The Filling
 

1. For the  filling, mix the following together in a sauce pan:  2/3 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 and 1/2 Tbs corn starch, 1 Tbs Gold Medal flour. 

Gold Medal flour?  Really, mom?   It has to be Gold Medal flour?  I think I might live life on the edge and try King Arthur.  I'm crazy that way seeing how I narrowly escaped being turned into a frog--gives one a whole new perspective.

2. Gradually stir in:   3 cups milk

               
3.  Cook over moderate heat stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil (1) minute, remove from heat. Remove 1/2 of the mixture, and slowly stir it into 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten.

4.  Take the egg-yolked mixture and blend in back into the hot mixture in the sauce pan. Boil (1) minute more, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.

5.  Blend in:  1 Tbs butter, 1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla

               
6.  Cool...stirring occasionally, or a thick film will form on the top of your cream mixture.

7.  Arrange a layer of sliced bananas 1/2 inch deep in the pie shell.  Don't ruin a perfectly good cream filling with the wrong bananas.  If the bananas are too green, the pie will taste the same way.  Conversely, if the bananas are too brown, your pie will have a bottom layer of brown sludge, and let's face it, no one wants to eat brown sludge.  The bananas should be bright yellow--no green and no brown.

8.  Pour cooled filling over bananas, and chill thoroughly.

9.  Remove chilled pie from refrigerator 20 min. before serving, and if you want to pretend that because it has bananas in it it's healthy, go ahead and serve it up with fresh whipped cream.

Epilogue:  Some things in life change, and some things in life stay the same.  Mark has morphed from an evil nemesis into one of my best friends, and  I still love banana cream pie.  Today is my birthday, and if my mother was here, I'm sure she would make it for me.  Unfortunately, even if her heart is in the right place, the rest of her is hundreds of miles away, so she can't.  Not to worry.  My husband has discovered a local bakery that gets it almost as good as mom's so I don't have to suffer the ignominy of making my own birthday pie.  For local followers, the banana cream pie at the Pie Gourmet in Vienna is worth every penny--all 2,000 of them.   

The Gazpacho Trail




Beijing 2008.  Go USA!

I'm currently in training for a marathon and a half; it's 26 miles on Day One, followed by 13 miles on Day Two.  Fortunately, I have the good sense to WALK it, rather than try to run it, but I still need to train--notwithstanding the belief among grizzled sports junkies that training for a walk is like making synchronized swimming an Olympic event.   Oh yeah.  My point exactly. 

Photo by Michael Sawyer

I'm doing most of my training on something called the W&OD trail.  It's an old 19th century railroad line that was abandoned in the late 1960's.  It's a regional treasure dotted with decaying barns, old depots, and placards that mark obscure civil war events.  Someone had the truly brilliant idea to pave it over and turn it into 45 miles of uninterrupted trail.  It's now a gorgeous pedestrian and bike path that meanders its way through the back ways and main streets of Northern Virginia like the yellow brick road through Oz.  Except, that is, in the summer.   In the heat of a Virginia summer, the W&OD might as well be the Ho Chi Minh Trail.



                                                     Photo by Michael Sawyer



Virginia summers are beyond hot.  The air is thick with gnats and mosquitoes--the only living things that really have any business being outside, and by mile marker #3, the little buggers will be dutifully lodged in my nose, teeth, and lungs.  Logging 20 miles in a single day is no easy feat.  It takes about 7 hours--8 if I stop for the requisite breaks to put fresh band-aids on my blistered feet.  At about mile marker #9, I'm aware that my clothes have absorbed so much sweat that I might just have to burn them when I get home.  By mile #16, I'm practically seeing mirages--imagining cabanas around every bend in the trail in which a shirtless man in white trousers will shove a sliver of lime into into a cold Corona, and hand it to me with a porcelain smile. When the training is finally--blessedly--over, I'm nothing but a hot sticky mess.  I look and feel like a Krispy Kreme doughnut that spent too much time in the microwave.


I am also hungry.  Ravenous, actually, but with a level of exhaustion that makes it difficult to chew.  Not to worry; here's a dish where the blender has basically already completed that task:  gazpacho.  It's the perfect thing to eat at the end of the training trail--a cold crisp combination of pureed cucumbers, tomatoes, and pepper, with just enough kick to get me up so that I can limp into the car and get home to a long and well-deserved shower.

Gazpacho

1.  Blend the following in a blender:  one pound of tomatoes; one-quarter of a large hot-house cucumber, peeled; one-quarter of a large red pepper, seeded; one-quarter of a large green pepper, seeded; 1 and 1/2 cups of tomato juice; 1 Tbs ketchup; 2 Tbs tomato paste; 1/4 cup sherry vinegar; 2 Tbs olive oil; 3 Tbs chopped parsley or cilantro.

2.  Dice the following:  one-quarter of a large hot-house cucumber; one-quarter of a large red pepper; one-quarter of large green pepper;  2 scallions; 1 large tomato.

3.  For you math types, the entire recipe calls for one-half each of a cucumber, red pepper and green pepper.  Half goes in the blender and half gets diced and added to the soup base; hence, a quarter for each part of the recipe.


4.  Add the diced vegetables to the soup base.  Taste.  Fool around with salt, sugar, black pepper and Tabasco sauce to taste (about 1/2 tsp of each if you have to be all technical about it).

5.  Chill for at least 8 hours, preferably 24. 

6.  Serve in a martini or margarita glass, especially when you're on the W&OD Trail because when you are that hot and tired, it's just a surreal bit of fun.  Sort of like synchronized swimming.

*** Many thanks to Michael D. Sawyer both for his excellent photos and his kindness for letting me use them here.

Can't do Kale

Not Marijuana

I 'm a member of something called "community supported agriculture"--or a CSA to foodies in the know.  I suppose I could put on high-falutin' liberal elitist airs and talk about how I'm supporting locally grown food, buying "organic", reducing green house gases, and I don't know--saving the whales in the process, but that's not really accurate.  Truth told, I joined because I'm too lazy to get up Saturday morning and get to a farmer's market.  Going to farmer's markets for me is a lot like exercise--I know I should do it, and I always feel better after I do, but somehow it always gets short shrift on the priority list.  The beauty of a CSA is that I get all that liberal elitist produce without the weekly schlep to some local church's parking lot.  All I do is pay my fee for the season, and once a week a very nice man in a refrigerated truck delivers--to my house no less--a crate of something that someone else had to plant, water, and harvest.  I get organic locally grown produce and he gets my money, usually in February or March when he needs it most.  It's a win-win.  Except for one significant and regrettable exception:  Kale.

You see, with a CSA, you cede to your farmer friend all decisions about what goes in the weekly box.  You get not only what's in season, but what your farmer has decided to grow.  For the 20-week growing season, he becomes the Big Brother of your diet.  Four huge bunches of basil?  Count on pesto this week.  Eggplant?  Time for ratatouille.  And for whatever reason, for about 6 weeks every summer, I get kale.  Lots and lots of kale.  I didn't even know what kale was until I joined this CSA.   The first time I saw it, I thought it was tobacco.  (I do live in Virginia, after all.)  It's a huge dark leafy green.  That's no typo; it's "green" the noun--not the adjective, like collards, spinach, and chard.

But what do you do with this crinkly green stuff other than use it for garnish?   I consulted my father--the preeminent Southern gentleman, and he advised that his mother used to put it in a pot with filled with about an inch of salted water, and she'd just cook it down all afternoon with some hog jowls.  Yep.  Hog jowls.  Pregnant pause followed by deadly silence.

Fortunately, I live in the 21st century, and there's this thing called the Internet.  Type in "Kale Recipes", and one pops up that didn't involve weird pieces of animals, and was actually tasty--Kale chips.  Best of all,  it uses gobs and gobs of kale that I didn't have to cure and smoke or pair with pig parts. 


Kale Chips
Allrecipes.com

1.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray Pam on a cookie sheet. 

2.  With a knife or kitchen shears carefully remove the thick stems and tear the kale into bite size pieces.  Do not be in the least bit tempted to inadvertently pop a piece into your mouth, unless you want to experience the sensation of a being a cow chewing its cud. 

3.  Wash and thoroughly dry the kale with a salad spinner. Drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle generously with seasoning salt.

4.  Bake until the edges brown but are not burnt--about 10 to 15 minutes.

The end product is salty, crunchy, and tasty.  Really.  It's also very delicate.  These aren't the kind of chips for plunging into a hearty sour cream and onion dip.  You still need Ruffles for that exercise.  You just eat kale chips.  And make sure you do so in about 24 hours.  They don't quite keep. 

P.S.  For those of you so inclined, my CSA can be contacted at Virginiagreengrocer.com.  If you sign up, mention this blog, and tell them to go easy on the Kale.

OMG--Can I have the recipe?

We all have those moments.   You're sitting at the time-honored neighborhood cook-out; the food gets passed, and out of decades of trained politeness you dutifully take the requisite spoonful of X that makes its way around the table.  You pour some more wine, and listen and laugh to the conversation.  It's mindless eating because you're enjoying the company, and let's face it, it's just burgers and hot-dogs.  At some point, however, as your fork makes its way around your plate, you stop.  Something tastes absolutely phenomenal.   What is it? 

At this point the conversation fades as your fork backtracks and rewinds.  Was it the salad?  No.  How about the green beans?   For God sake--you brought those; no.  The burger?  It's a great burger; what open-flamed, hand molded, quarter pounder smothered in real cheddar cheese isn't?   But no, it's not the burger.  This was different.  It tasted a little unusual, yet at the same time you felt like you felt like you were coming home to something soothingly familiar.  Slowly, finally, you identify the culinary culprit.  

I'm really not a food snob, but I don't often have these moments.  It's probably because I love to eat so much, and have pretty much eaten EVERYTHING, that I'm just not frequently surprised anymore.  But when it happens, I'm pretty much transfixed.  Somehow the gluttony button gets pushed and I find myself going back not just for seconds, but for thirds, and dare I say it?  Fourths.  It doesn't matter now that I'm full.  This stuff tastes good and I'm no longer feeding my hunger, I'm feeding my tastebuds.  I'm trying desperately to reverse engineer the recipe, and just one more tablespoon might just lead me to the promised land.  I have no idea anymore what my dinner companions are talking about. I just have to figure out what is in this stuff.  Ultimately, I give up, interrupt the banter, and proclaim:  "Oh my God--this is amazing.  Can I have the recipe?"

And because you are reading this blog, now you have it too. 

Corn and Tomato Salad  (Really.  Corn and tomatoes--I kid you not.)

1.  Heat 2 T of olive oil over medium high heat in a large skillet.  Add 1 Tbsp of finely chopped garlic.  (No wonder I felt like I was coming home:  garlic).

2.   Add 3 cups of fresh corn kernels (about 6 ears), and saute for about 5 minutes until the kernels are just tender.  If you absolutely have to, you can use 10 ounces of frozen corn, but the fresh corn, cut right off the cob, is a difference you can taste.

3.  Once the corn mixture has slightly cooled, move it to a large mixing bowl and add 1/2 cup packed, thinly cut, fresh basil.  Use scissors to cut basil and most other herbs.  For some reason, herbs don't bruise quite as much with scissors.

4.  Add 5 cups of fresh plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped. 

5.  Season with 3 Tbsp of high-quality balsmic vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. 

6.  Cover and chill 3-8 hours.

Best of all, there's almost nothing in it that's fattening--a critical factor if you happen, like I did, to go back for fourths.

Fifth Grade Fruit Smoothie

Parenting is pretty much all about making mistakes and then hoping against hope that you don't screw up your kids in the process.  And so it was that my youngest daughter asked me last Fall to sign her up for a cooking class.  Seemed like a good idea, but the thing was that I had to sign a permission slip in order for her to participate.  Unfortunately, I'm an attorney, and I actually do read the damn things.  Mistake No. 1. 

The permission slip required that I waive any liability for negligence.  Without getting into a whole treatise on tort law (in a cooking blog, no less), suffice it to say that this is a pretty big deal.  Waiving negligence means, for example, that if the cooking teacher decides to take a call from her boyfriend at the exact minute that my daughter wonders whether you can flip a hamburger with your fingers, and as a result she gets 3rd degree burns on three fingers of her writing hand, I can't blame the teacher's failure to supervise.   Or more pointedly, I can't sue based on that fact.  Waiving simple negligence seemed--at the time--like a pretty scary thing to do, particularly with something as eminently precious as one of my children.  I mean, if you're going to teach her to do anything that involves flames and hot objects, you better be damn well sure you aren't negligent in the process.  So I did what any good lawyer would do: I made changes to the contract--er, I mean,the permission slip.  Mistake No. 2.

Turns out the very people who asked me to sign the said permission slip have their own crack pot attorney who reviews them.  Carefully, it turns out--especially when a parent has the audacity to change them.  And when said attorney sees that I've amended  the permission slip, and stuck in the word "not" right between the words "will" and "waive" as in "will not waive negligence,"  well, he or she did what any good lawyer would do under the circumstances:  denied my child admission to the class.  It's what we call in the law a "contract of adhesion."  It's what normal people call "my way, or the highway."   Ultimately, I had a decision to make:  sign the permission form as is or don't enroll my daughter in the class.  I stood on principle; I refused to sign the form and passed on the class.  Mistake No. 3.

 
Enter one screaming crying 10-year-old who wants to know why she can't cook after school with her friends.  Try to explain to her the concept of negligence.  Mistake No. 4. 

At some point after the screaming subsided, I realized to my chagrin that I had completely and utterly screwed up.  Not only was I doing my level best to perpetuate the legal profession's bad reputation, but I completely missed an opportunity to share with my daughter something that I truly love to do--cook.  Worse, all I had taught her was to be afraid to take even the most minor of risks.  I mean, really, even 3rd degree burns will eventually heal. Thankfully, mercifully, they offered the class again in the Spring.  Perhaps one day only a high-priced therapist will be able to unravel the mess I've created, but this time, fortunately, my mistake was easy to fix.  All I had to do was sign the stupid permission slip.

And when I did, my daughter came home with this marvelous little recipe.               

Fifth-Grade Smoothie
1.  Get out the blender.  Remind your daughter not to put her fingers near the blades and to secure the lid while the motor is running.  Watch as she rolls her eyes and advises you that she knows that already. 

2.  Add 8 ounces of plain or vanilla yogurt.

3. Add 1 cup of low-fat milk.

4.  Throw in at least one cup of your favorite fruit, although berries and/or bananas work best.

5.  Add a packet of Equal, a Tbs of sugar, or a Tbs of honey, because you want your children to eat it.

6.  Secure the blender lid.  I know, I know, you know that already.  Push any of the buttons because they will all blend fruit, yogurt, and milk.