Last week we went to heaven — not the one-way ticket concept, or the Rewards for Good Behavior concept, but the Heaven on Earth concept, and it was lovely all around. My friends Dean and Joe have a beautiful farm up past Scranton, Pennsylvania, with all the transcendant beauty of an old-school dairy farm and none of the work. We sleep late, sit and visit, read a lot, take turns in the big ol’ swing and the enormous hammock under the most magnificent ancient shade tree, and spend a little time cooking good things.
Avoiding a trip to the grocery store (not quite ten miles and a lovely drive at that) has high priority, and when the Dessert Bug bit, we all turned to stare at the basket, where once and recently had waited ripe peaches and blueberries, but at that point was home to naught but onions, shallots, chilies, and a big freckly bunch of bananas.
“Banana Cream Pie?” whispered Dean. How hard could that be, we all murmured? “Not very!” came the answer, since the magic of wireless took us to Leite’s Culinaria where excellent recipes await (including, full disclosure, a few of my very own…). Not only did we find a most worthy recipe with encouraging inspiring commentary from cooks, but it came with a sweet, tender, moving essay by Beth M. Howard, from whose book, Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie, the recipe came.
I liked it not only for its intrinsic qualities, but because it called for meringue, rather than whipped cream. I love me some whipped cream, to the point of not getting in to that other Heaven Concept if the gluttony and worship of unholy things part is on the money, but since we did not have any, that was a mark against it (See “…trip to the store…” above). This called for egg yolks in the custard and egg whites into the meringue and we had every single other thing required. In a very short time, custard was made and pie shell was baked to a golden turn. We lined it with ‘naners, filled it with custard, added the remaining ‘naners to the top even though that was not mentioned (we like walking to the edge sometimes), and buzzed up the meringue with sugar and cream of tartar and a bit of salt, using Dean’s electric hand mixer. Do you love his green mixing bowl, which came from his mama’s kitchen? I know, right? If I were not worried about that other Heaven thing I might covet it or worse, but deep breath, I stayed on the good road, with the reward of pie in my near future.
It was so pretty with all that meringue, from five, count ’em folks, FIVE egg whites —- what a pleasure to transform the little clear golden-tinged egg whites to bubbly foam and then thick cream and finally magical mighty whorls of glorious sweetness. Dean did that, I just watched and cheered. While the oven heated up, we put it in the window, because when one encounters an actual old-school window sill in a kitchen on a day when one can do so, one ought to put a pie right there and take its picture.
Here’s Dean placing the handsomely perfectly browned pie back on the window sill to cool down. We all stayed far away from it because you could just not hardly avoid cutting an early piece if you got too close. It sat there for a good while, till cooled off nicely, and then went in the fridge until after dinner. It was so wonderful. Can’t believe it but there was enough left after the first pass by four people that we had some for breakfast the next morning, before hitting the road to drive back home. It was sweet, every bit of it, so very sweet. We are very lucky.
Want the recipe for this delightful summertime pleasure of a pie, from Leite’s Culinaria?
Click right HERE!
Want to read the essay from Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie, which was even more wonderful than the actual pie and that is saying very very wonderful moving and good?
Click HERE!
Want to know more about the book from whence cometh the pie, and the author of that book?
Click right HERE! and right HERE!
Want to buy the book from an Indie Bookshop, near or far?
Want to see that pie on the windowsill one more time? I know I do. To time with friends, vintage and new, family too, in the kitchen, on the porch or in the car, and especially at the table. Happy summer, folks!
I can’t recall the last time I had banana cream pie. Love and Loss indeed. GREG