Baking-the Agony, the Ecstasy

I'm not much of a baker. I prefer cooking which seems to require a little less precision. I usually get in a very bad mood after attempting to bake.

Recently, I attempted to make my grandmother's recipe for pumpkin pie. Now you have to understand that my grandmother was an amazing cook. Everyone always raved about her cooking. But as a kid, I knew that it was important to stay out of the kitchen when she was cooking because she moved at high speeds in nonsensical directions. You couldn't predict where she was headed and you might get ran into. She was forever cutting herself, burning herself and inflicting other injuries because she wouldn't slow down. Now my mom has some of her self-inflicted injury tendencies but for the most part I picked up some less detrimental genes from the other side of the family. Whew!

But I didn't learn anything from her about cooking because I was busy avoiding injury. Then in her 80s she decided to impart to her granddaughters a recipe book. And I have occasionally pulled it out and attempted to make one of her recipes. And it flops, and I put it away and stick to Cooking Light.

So last week I had a pie pumpkin in my CSA box and decided to try a pumpkin pie. I've already attempted pie crusts enough times to know that my family shouldn't have to live with the mood I fall into when I attempt making one. So I purchased a Trader Joe's pie crust. And made my Oma's pumpkin pie. Which involved scalding milk, and doing other things I never do. The result was very heavy on the nutmeg and an interesting texture which was similar to her pumpkin pie, but just a little off.

An email exchange with my cousins confirmed what I was starting to suspect. My grandmother made up her own recipes for things and never wrote anything down. UNTIL she made that recipe book for us. And then she guessed. My cousin LeRae cooks like this and recognized it might be a challenge to try to duplicate her efforts. INDEED.

So I have given up on the idea of making Thanksgiving's pumpkin pie. (My aunt makes a really good one. Hint! Hint!)

But I still had a pie crust from Trader Joes and a sweet tooth. So I found this recipe for Pear Pie. It was quick, easy, and fabulous. I hope I don't turn into a baker because I like baked goods entirely too much and I don't want that stuff around the house. But it was gratifying to know that I could actually make a good pie in a pinch.