Valentine's Day... and Barney Fitzgibbon

Valentine's Day has always been a family day in our house. Every year I have come up with a simple theme, and created an evening around that theme and an amazing home-cooked meal. This year, since my daughter had been talking recently about not remembering most of the Disney classic movies, I decided to use a movie as my theme, for a quiet at home dinner-and-movie. Lady and the Tramp is a sweet story that seemed perfectly suited to Valentine's Day. With a quick trip to the secondhand bookstore, I found not one, but TWO copies of Little Golden Books. One I kept intact for our children's book shelf, and the other I used to create a few tiny decorations. The cover became a portrait inside of a tiny vignette complete with a wine-bottle candle, and the pages became a hanging mobile suspended from our swag lamp.

For dinner, the obvious choice was a spaghetti dinner. With two vegetarians, meatballs were a bit more of a challenge however. Fortunately, thanks to Pinterest, I found a recipe for a zucchini-based vegetarian "meatball" and decided that we would have:

* Spaghetti with "meatballs"

* Gluten-free crunchy breadsticks

* Moscato poached pears

* and for dessert... a cannoli pie.

Now I like to think of myself as a moderately accomplished baker. I have been baking from scratch, since I was 8 years old... and baking gluten free, for 13 1/2 years. But pie crust is something I have never attempted. My mother, who taught me to bake, hated pie crust. She only made it twice every year; for my father's birthday, and for Thanksgiving. And on those two days, she would pound her fist, stomp her foot, bite her lip, and shout at the top of her lungs, “Oh, Barney Fitzibbon... Darn it all to pieces!!!” as she fought mightily against the evil terror that eventually became a crust.

So... I have been afraid.

Of dough.

For thirty-five years.

I swore that I would not attempt “Barney Fitgibbon” pie crust EVER.

Or maybe not until I had mastered gluten free baking.

Definitely not until I could manage meringues and macarons.

Until finally, I found myself out of excuses.

I was not ready. Who is ever “ready” to tackle their Everest? You can be prepared, but you are never really ready.

This cannoli pie was going to have a crust. A real crust, not a cookie-crust.

After 5 ½ hours of mixing, pinching, stirring, chilling, rolling, chilling, pricking, baking, chilling, filling, and baking again, all while biting my nails and second-guessing myself I have created...

THE UGLIEST PIE EVER!!!

The edges are rumply and unlovely.

There is a tiny hole where the dough separated.

The crust is a darker than I'd like.

The filling started to scorch in the two minutes between soupy and done.

And... I am proud of this ugly pie. It smells absolutely divine. There was a bit of extra dough that a baked as a test, and it tasted absolutely amazing. And the filling smells positively heavenly.

It is not pretty. It is obviously a first attempt that will require my family to suffer through chocolate pies, crusted quiches, and crusted vegan pot-pies until I am absolutely satisfied. But it is enough. And it will taste all the better, for the thirty-five years of fretting that's gone into this

one

ugly

pie.  

Garden Post: 2/7

There is a blizzard warning one county away. The roads are slippery, there's a windchill warning, and the local schools are closing early. 

Here inside the house, warm inside my mountain of fluffy throw blankets and wool bedsocks I can sit with my hands warming on my cuppa and look out the window and just enjoy the silence that a good snowfall always brings. 

We live between three highways. Even in the middle of the night, there is road noise. But when it snows, everything falls silent. The traffic noises fall away, the birds are quiet, and there is nothing but the quiet rustle of fresh snow falling on our skylights. This is the kind of quiet that you FEEL as you sit, watching the snow fall, with nothing interrupting you but the occasional whoosh of a stray breeze playing amongst the trees. 

One week into February, we have already started our seedlings for this year's garden. This is our 13th year of intensive square-foot gardening, and we are excited to be starting herbs from seed for the first time. Our worm colony wintered in a worm-bin in the dining room, and we used the rich soil from their beds as our starting soil. In the window, we have started: cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, savory, rosemary, basil, lemonbalm, dill, and strawberries. 

And so, our season of waiting and anticipation begins. From a row of paper cups, will come months of fresh herbs, and enough produce to cut our summer & autumn grocery bill by 25%. On our 128 sqare-foot deck, will be an oasis of organic goodness. 

This year's garden will be rearranged to make room for squirrel-proof cloches to protect the strawberries. We are also growing dill and marshmallow for the first time. We have scaled back on the type of plants we are growing, in order to grow more of what we love. Since squash and corn is constantly ravaged by the squirrels, we will have more tomatoes and three types of salad greens instead. 

The months of watering, weeding, and chasing squirrels are before us. For now however, it is a time for quiet waiting. 

For now, the garden sleeps.