Past, Present and Future

Pie

Describe your cooking or baking ability. What was the last thing you cooked/baked that you we’re proud of? Are you a recipe-follower or freestyler?

Monday was always a good day to get home from school. My mum called Monday her baking day. She baked all day to try and have enough goodies to sate the appetites of her husband and three sons.

I can still smell the jam tarts, lemon curd tarts, mince pies (sweet and savory) and the piece de resistance, apple pie. That aroma has only ever been bettered by the smell of a beer cellar in an English pub. (My grandma ran a pub, but that’s another tale.)

Like most families we all grew up and flew the nest. Many years later I was visiting my mum and dad. After a lovely meal mum asked me if I wanted some apple pie and custard. “Bloody ‘ell yes please.”

She placed the bowl in front of me and she saw the disappointment on my face.
“What’s this mum? That’s not homemade apple pie.”
She replied, “I know, I don’t bake since you boys left. There’s nobody here to eat it.”

The end of an era. My mum’s apple pie has gone to the great bakery in the sky.

After that visit I thought about baking myself.

I checked the kitchen cupboard. I had baked beans, sweetcorn and a tin of spinach. Even I knew that I wouldn’t get any baked delights out of that sorry collection.

So, I did some research; I needed baking trays and all kinds of other baking instruments. I made a list and I was ready to go shopping. Then I thought I may as well get the ingredients for baking while I was out.

I read a recipe for some fancy cake. My enthusiasm for baking was waning. This was a mission.

Looking for and buying all the ingredients seemed too much like hard work.

The juice of a West African gum tree, the ground up powder of a rare Venezuelan coconut and if I found all that I had to then get five drops of blood from a Turkish teenage virgin. (It didn’t specify male or female.)

I went to Krispy Kreme instead.