Making A Good Pie: Ingenuity, Good Judgement & Great Care

July 29, 2013September 19, 2016 / Ally Bean / 25 Comments

My mother collected cookbooks and I still have some of them. They provide fascinating glimpses into times gone by. I never know what I’m going to find when I start looking through one.

I saw the following recipe while I was glancing through The Marion County Historical Society Heritage Cookbook published [I believe] in 1975. The Heritage Cookbook had reprinted it from an earlier cookbook.

This recipe, with its moralizing introduction and decided lack of measurements, was originally published in 1901 in a cookbook called, Recipes Tried and True by the Ladies’ Aid Society of the First Presbyterian Church.

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“WHO DARES DENY THE TRUTH THERE IS POETRY IN PIE”

~ Longfellow

There are plenty of women capable of choosing good husbands, or if not good when chosen, or [sic] of making them good. Yet these same women may be ignorant on the subject of making a good pie.

Ingenuity, good judgement, and great care should be used in making all kinds of pastry. Use very cold water and just as little as possible. Roll thin, and ALWAYS AWAY FROM YOU. Prick the bottom with a fork, then brush with white of egg, and sprinkle with white sugar. This will give you a firm rich crust.

For all fruit pies, prepare as above. Stew the fruit, sweeten to taste; if juicy, put a layer of cornstarch on top before putting on the top crust.

Be sure there are plenty of incisions in the top crust. Then pinch the edges.

Sprinkle white sugar on top, and bake in a moderate oven.

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[After a bit of research I found this: Recipes Tried and True. On Kindle. For free.]

Me, The Morning Star & The Muse Of Practicality

July 25, 2013July 25, 2013 / Ally Bean / 12 Comments

“Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”

~ Henry David Thoreau, the end of Walden Pond

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The other morning I woke up at 5:30 a.m. This is much too early by my standards, but there I was AWAKE, not worrying about a thing. So I got up, made a pot of coffee, poured myself a mug, grabbed my camera and went out on the deck to sit, waiting for the sun to come up.

It didn’t take long for the first rays of sunlight to sneak across the lawn heading for the wooded ravine behind our home.

Nor did it take long for me to become bewitched by the path of the glittery sunlight, following it with my camera into the darkest parts of the woods.

At this point I’d love to tell you that my early morning photo shoot was some sort of transcendental awakening. That the course of my life was permanently altered because of my experience watching the morning light illuminate the woods.

But there wasn’t anything spiritual about my early morning on the deck. It was all very practical. A way for me to learn about using my camera in various light. And the opportunity to ponder why it is that I can remember the last line of Walden Pond– but, for the life of me, can’t think of the first one!

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A Few Thoughts Plus A Few Photos Doth A Blog Post Make

July 18, 2013August 29, 2018 / Ally Bean / 16 Comments

I REMEMBER YEARS AGO when I started blogging someone said to me that he didn’t like blogs because all people did was take photos of things in their homes and talk about them. He found this boring and pointless and stupid. Even though I thought that he was wrong, I shrugged it off without a comment.

His point of view seemed uninformed and mean-spirited to me.

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THEN A FEW YEARS AGO when I was in a blogging slump someone suggested to me that I take some photos of the stuff in my house and share them. Again, I was back in a conversation about photos in a blog, although this time the conversation was helpful, not hurtful.

This woman suggested that when you’re at home you are who you are. Unvarnished. Authentic. Free to do what you want to do with the space that you have. So why not start there in your home, and write about it or whatever it brings to mind?

Her point of view seemed practical and kind-hearted to me.

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SO IT IS AT THIS POINT that I find myself today. I have the photos. I have knowledge necessary to post them. I have nothing profound to say about each photo, nor do I have a cohesive theme to this post that makes them noteworthy.

But I believe that when you commit to being a personal blogger sometimes showing up and posting something is what needs to be done. This means that if sharing three photos from the last few weeks is what keeps this blog keeping on– then so be it.

And that, my friends, is all I have for you today.

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You Say Kadigan, I Say Menopause

July 9, 2013May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 12 Comments

HERE is something that I learned & maybe you will find it interesting, too.

There is a word to describe the linguistic phenomenon when a person uses a generic placeholder word for a specific word because that person cannot remember the specific word. This placeholder word is called a KADIGAN. More here & here.

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TO WIT, I will first tell you a sentence filled with kadigans; it is the sort of sentence that a menopausal woman might say.

Charming example sentence filled with kadigans:

Sunshine, I’d love to buy you that gewgaw with the gobbledygook on it, but out here in Podunk, USA, they don’t take credit cards and I don’t have my thingamadoodle to get money from the ATM.

# # #

THEN I will interpret what I said, translating said sentence into pre-menopausal speak.

Charming example sentence devoid of kadigans:

Susan, I’d love to buy you that piece of jewelry with the monogram engraved on it, but out here in this small town, they don’t take credit cards and I don’t have my bank card to get money from the ATM.

# # #

AND THAT, my gentle readers, is what kadigans are all about. They are the ability to keep speaking, as if you know what you’re saying, even when you are experiencing your own personal summer & cannot for the life of you remember that word you need to use right now… so you fill-in the blank as best you can.