About half an hour ago, I went upstairs with a knife in my hand and entered the bedroom where Mr. Rilch lay dozing. “Sweetie,” I said, “how does this look?”
I was in the process of baking a sweet potato pie. This is my first time doing such a thing (sweet potato pie, I mean, not my first time baking a pie, or baking at all.) At the time, it had been in for forty minutes past the prescribed hour. The outer rim was solid, but when I put the knife in the inner core, it still came out with detritus on it.
All the way up the stairs I was thinking, “Now don’t point it at him; keep your other hand in front of it till you get his attention.” He still gave a tiny gasp when he saw the knife.
“It’s not complete mush in the middle,” I explained. “It has this consistency. Would you eat this?”
He licked his finger and dabbed the residue, then recommended another twenty minutes. At the end of that time, the consistency was the same, and I took it out, on the theory that it must be as solid as it was meant to be. Next time I’ll bump the temperature up just a bit.
Just thought I’d share that. I felt like I was Jean Smart or somebody, in one of those Lifetime movies that some poster calls “Adjective Noun: The Proper Name Story”.
Tonight on Lifetime: “Mushy Sweet Tater Pie: The Mrs. Rilch Story” starrig Melissa Gilbert as Mrs. Rilch, Ed Marinaro (or Kevin Dobson) as Mr. Rilch, and featuring as their friends and neighbors: Loni Anderson, Michelle Lee, Michael York, Frank Stallone and Lou Gossett, Jr.
Special cameos by Morgan Fairchild and William Devane as Mrs. Rilch’s parents, and Clint Howard as Mrs. Rilch’s ugly brother with one line.
Did I miss any Lifetime regulars, that lady from the soaps on the show with the amiable old guy who did the oats commercials, Our House, I think.
Don’t forget Tori Spelling as the cashier who sold me the sweet potatoes, and tearfully tells the cops that “Her eyes just looked like she was going to mash something besides yams!”