Well, this was a crappy way to end my day.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, tomorrow is the day that the fruit pies are judged at the Indiana State Fair. My husband has been gearing up for this all year - tweaking his crust recipe, adjusting the cinnamon to nutmeg ratio - you get the idea. He makes a really good apple-cranberry pie with a homemade crust and everything. Entries are to arrive tomorrow from 7:30 to 11:30 AM. He decided to enter three classes: Do Your Own Thing (fruit filling not specifically listed), the Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust Championship (top prize $500), and the Crisco “My Favorite Pie” Contest (top prize $250). Now, he doesn’t really expect to win anything, but he would like an impartial judge’s opinion on his pies.

So, we got to work on Thursday night. I made the fillings and he made the crusts (other than the Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crusts - we warmed those to room temperature). Twelve large Granny Smith Apples, peeled and cut into thirty-seconds (that’s 32nds, not half a minute). Three cups of dried cranberries, soaked and drained. Fresh nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger. The gooey drizzle of molasses. He worked his crusty magic.

We worked together trying to figure out how to get the @&#*%!$#^& crust on TOP of the pie without it falling apart, with marginal success. It’s on there, but it ain’t pretty. He’s not gonna earn many points for appearance, that’s for sure. Around midnight, with all three pies safely wrapped in plastic and tucked away in the garage fridge, we go to bed.

This morning, I woke up extra early (for me, anyway), and drove my darling husband up to Carmel - his boss’s house. Four of the guys from work are attending techical training in Chicago for the weekend, so I drove him up there so he wouldn’t have to drive himself home on Saturday - he’ll be dropped off! My mom had volunteered to come help me bake the pies and was to be waiting for me when I got home.

When I got home, there were two Marion County Sheriff’s cars on my street, and the officers were casually getting into their respective vehicles. It seems as though I’d forgotten to give my mom the alarm code. Whoops.

Anyway - the baking gets done, and we go out for dinner, leaving the pies carefully covered in foil (but not too tightly) on the kitchen island, each atop its very own cooling rack. When I get back, everything’s great.

I come into the office and start to type up the recipes (on 8 1/2" x 11" paper, must include exhibitor and class numbers!). My friend Tina drops by to show me her “new” 2004 Cavalier - very cute - and pick up two of the free tickets we got for being an exhibitor in the fair. (Free being not exactly the right word here. He paid $30 to be entered in the classes and got 6 tickets. So really, he paid for them.) We sit on the porch while I smoke a ciggy and shoot some shit. She came back inside and I showed her the pies in all of their golden brown glory. After she leaves, I come back into the office to finish changing the basic recipe for each class specification. I go into the living room to dig around in the desk for a stapler, and that’s when I notice it. One of the pieces of foil is on the floor. And the dog is licking the floor. And there’s a chunk out of the crust of the Do Your Own Thing Pie.

Fuck.

So I call hubby and leave a message on his cell phone, begging forgiveness for not putting the pies up higher or wrapping them tighter or watching the dog or whatever blunder made this happen. I wrapped it back up and put it on the counter top, as faaaaaaaaaar back as I can. Then, I decide to place the other pies somewhere safer - like in the (now cooled) oven. The Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust pie is A-OK. But the Crisco “My Favorite Pie” Contest pie is not. This one appears to have had a small section of crust carefully nibbled away. As in, by a cat. Now, I know the cats like to eat pie crust when we give it to them. I just never expected (not in a million years) that they’d go after it like that.

So I call my husband. Again. And leave a message. Again. This time, I’m almost in tears. We spent three hours on these pies - his babies - and now, only one remains. The one with the crappy crust that the cats wouldn’t even eat. (The other two are not salvageable. It’s really more than crust missing on one, and the hole in the other is about 1.5" in diameter.)

Good night to me! :rolleyes:

2

Aww, you must feel terrible. How is hubby taking it? And, can I have a piece?

3

That sucks.

Would it be out of place to leave a “when come back, bring pie” comment?

4

So two of these crusty and delicious pies are now… ummm… available?

5

You traded a chance to win a ribbon at the fair for a story you can tell for years: “Hey, hon, remember the time we spent hours baking pies for the fair and the animals ate them?” “Yeah, good ol’ Fluffy. She was a pie-eatin’ cat, wasn’t she?”

Also, this way you can always believe that you would’ve won first place.

6

If you recover from this enough to try again, the best way I’ve found to get a pie crust perfectly on top of the pie is to place wide wax paper or parchment paper between the roller and the dough. Then, once it’s rolled you can flip the pastry mat upside down and pull it off, leaving the dough laying on top of the parchment which can then be flipped upside down again (yes this is messy, do you want a beautiful pie or not?!) on top of the pie. Fold and crimp, cut a couple slits or use a tiny cookie cutter to make decorative holes, and you’re all set.

Damn, now I want to make a pie.

7

I think you have just enough time to make a dog pie for the Do Your Own Thing competition.

8

Yeah, a cat pie would be to stringy, methinks.
That really does suck though.
Any left?

9

One of my favorite non-dirty swear words is ‘crust!’ because they’re so darned hard to get right. Making homemade crust took about five years of sporadic effort and I still couldn’t get the top to look like anything but a trainwreck. The rolling pin trick defeated me.

Then the best pie-crust trick in the whole world was revealed to me. I don’t even remember which show it was, but the opening sequence showed a pie crust that had been rolled out on a cutting board I believe, and then slid onto the pie by tipping the board. You start at one side of the pie pan and slide the board away as the crust settles on the filling.

I’ve not had a broken crust since and it even works for lattice and other fancy cut crusts as well.

Try to take some consolation in that it might still have happened even if your hubby had been home. Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects pets nibbling your People Food. Until it’s too late.

10

A friend that is often called on to make cakes for weddings, birthdays, etc., once told us the story of the Dog and the Wedding Cake.

Discovered the dog munching on someone’s wedding cake the morning she had to take it over. Much amusement over spending a frantic morning cutting away the chewed part, and re-baking and attaching and covering the weld with icing…

I’ve been really careful what I eat at Kim’s ever since.

11

Thanks for all of your replies of commiseration and advice!

Hubby was OK with it. He left me a message Saturday morning that basically said, “Well, that sucks, but that’s exactly where I would have left the pies, too.” I got the last one delivered safe and sound to the basement of the Home & Family Arts building on time. I don’t know how he did, though, because by the time I was thinking about getting his results, I was walking to the First Aid tent, overheated and ready to throw up. (Which I did.)

For the record, anyone coming to this afternoon’s DopeFest at the 8 China Buffet in Castleton (around 2:00 PM) will have the chance to sample one sightly-nibbled Apple Cranberry Pie!

(And I’m pretty sure that I know which cat did it. His. My cat was dozing quietly on the bed through all of this, while Zoe was sitting on the stool pulled up to the kitchen island, looking slightly guilty. Or full. Hard to tell with a cat.)

12

I hate to tell you this, but Zoe has that ‘perpetually guilty’ look on her face. My Oscar has that look, too, and he’s the one who gets into the most scrapes. Emmy, like Stacey, typically just has that ‘I’m adorable’ look on her face. I’d pin the blame on Zoe, too.

What’s her punishment? Extra mousing duties? Cleaning the kitchen?

E.

13

Oh, please. Like they do anything else around here other than hold down the furniture!

14

So how did he do?

15

Aww, come on! How could such cute cats be guilty of anything?

16

Oh man. First degree pie-icide. Well, there’s always next year, right? :slight_smile:

Oh, and please do tell us how your hubby fared with his remaining wares!

Band name!!

17

We don’t know how he did yet. I was too overheated at the end of the day* to get his results back, and they haven’t been posted on-line yet.
*I ended up in the First Aid building, horking up my Moose Tracks ice cream. Not a pleasant way to end Saturday, either!!

18

Was the pie crust dough sufficiently refrigerated?

Why do you think these are called “Pie Safes”?

19

ouryL, we chill the crust for about 15 minutes in the fridge. He used to try putting it in the freezer, which was a disaster.

We would love a pie safe, I’m sure, but we don’t exactly have room for one. Nor do we usually make multiple pies. We’ve got a year to figure it out.