How to Bake a Pie

Bottom Crust:

For two weeks at least where I went so too did The Sound and the Fury, yet not once did I read beyond the front cover. I carried that book like a shield from place to place, from home and back again. But it wasn't protection I needed, it was something to hide behind. It kind of worked.

Sunday afternoon I moseyed on down to the hardware store, bought a big ol' bag of dirt, repotted my choking mint and overcrowded basil. In a smaller pot I sowed a few chervil seeds and with the rest of that soil replaced the summer's wildflowers with what will hopefully be a tiny garden of arugula and winter lettuces. Three flights up I've hoarded myself a bit of earth, and though I'll never be able to live off the fat of the land at least I can look forward to a peppery salad.

It's a little thing.



Filling:

A half peck of New York State apples I found waiting for me on my desk, "Mr. Mitchell agreed with me that you should have these," he said after I looked behind with one eyebrow raised. I half expected to find tiny little hearts carved into the skin of each one, but in my relief at finding them all unbruised there was perhaps a twinge of disappointment just the same. Joe as ever was slightly less subtle. "Where are the cookies?" he hollered, no hello after his long flight from Atlanta, no how's life, how's the house, how's the boyfriend. "I'm protesting," I replied.

Because, as ever, I am.



Top Crust:

"Do you still post on your food blog?" Seth asked next morning; "apparently Kristen's still checking." [ed: Hi, Kristen!] And golly, how to answer that. In my head I post every day but things have a way of getting in the way. My intentions are good but like everything else I do the execution leaves room for a great good amount of improvement. I don't know, I just miss my old kitchen I guess.

I'm running out of excuses.



Bake:

Once upon a time the hardest decision was what to make for dinner. Protein, starch, veg. Glass of red or white. He threw a wad of cash on the bar and left to sign some daycare papers, I pulled on my sweater as the cold air rushed in behind. Our last warm day has come and gone and too late I've realized I ate hardly any peaches this year. I've half a peck of New York State apples but nary a peach in sight. It's not the same.

But nothing's ever the same, not really. Except for when it kind of is? I broke another office personality test last week, NO TALKING, NO TOUCHING this one hollered at me. "I can't tell if I should do the complete opposite or use this as an excuse," I whispered. I mean, I don't know, sometimes it's all about the path of least resistance.

(He said we'd always be a part of one another's life, but I guess that's just one of those things you say.)