Lime-y

Key Lime Pie doesn’t travel well.  Transporting it from one place to another in multiple Tupperware containers (as opposed to it’s original pie dish) is not something I would recommend.  Travel certainly doesn’t affect the taste, but it does affect presentation…and as we know I’m a stickler when it comes to presenting.  When you jostle the pie around in a strange, seemingly Spring-like storm with 40 mile per hour winds, take it on the train, take it to the dentist and then take it to work, the pie has a tendency to move about on it’s own in an undesirable fashion which ultimately resembles banana pudding having a very bad hair day.   I just needed to get that off my chest first and foremost, nothing but glad tidings from here on out. (And no I didn’t take a picture because it made me sad)

Last Saturday marked National Pie Day.  I however wasn’t aware that such a day existed until a co-worker pointed it out to me this afternoon, so it was fortuitous that I already had a pie plan in the works.   Apparently this “holiday” is celebrated every 23rd of January and was first created years back to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Crisco.  I’m not sure that Crisco actually needed to create “pie day” to celebrate this…it smells deeply of a marketing ploy methinks, but you won’t find me knocking the product.  It certainly adds that certain something to a piecrust from time to time.  (Though, I feel my arteries clogging just thinking about it.)

Picking up on the citrus theme from earlier in the month, I decided to make a Key Lime Pie. (This is a very similar recipe) Having covered something orange and lemon, it seemed only reasonable to make a lime flavored desert.  I was in the mood for something tart, zesty and potent…a taste explosion if you will, and I think this pie certainly did the trick. 

The main ingredient is obviously the Key Limes, which hale from the Florida Keys and are a very small, lemon-lime fruit.  They are quite tart, pack a punch and often you can find them in the regular super-market…especially now with citrus being “in season”.  I wasn't so lucky when I went on my search this weekend and returned home instead with a mixture of lemons and limes to stand-in place of the little missing fruit.  The recipe I used called for 20 Key Limes, which equals out to about 3/4 cup of juice.  Since I was unable to procure the necessary ingredient, I replaced them with the juice of 1 1/2 lemons and 3 limes.  I also used the zest from both a lemon and a lime to send the flavor over the edge…and it worked!  The result is a sweet and irresistible filling which packs a pucker.  This pie for me brought the kind of joy I only know from licking the spoon of a freshly made batch of lemon curd (yea, I said it).  Few things can compare.

Part of this dessert’s appeal for me was also the color.  The pie calls for a layer of meringue and freshly whipped cream mixed together and mounded on the top to give it some heft and fluff.  I wasn’t sure how well this would photograph so I did two versions, one naked and one all dressed up.  Visually I’m not sure which one I prefer, but certainly adding all of that cream and meringue didn’t hurt my taste buds when it came time to have a slice.

The other big news of the weekend, other than Crisco’s invented sales promo day (sorry Crisco) was that our dear friends Izabella and Jonathan are pregnant!!!  We couldn’t believe it!  As I get older, this seems to be happening more and more…as I suppose it must.  It’s such an exciting time for them and for us, and we can’t wait to meet the new baby later this summer.  Brian and I have been in the process of adopting for about a year now and we have our fingers crossed that this may be the year that we too have a tiny one in our house.

It’s strange to wait for a baby, something not like any other experience.  I mean, with baking, a bun in the oven is a VERY different thing.  With the “bun”, you hope it will rise and be the best bread you hoped it could be, but with an actual baby it’s a whole other set of hopes and expectations.  It’s a life you plan to share in, to nurture and to love (not unlike a temperamental yeast), but at the end of the day you never know what’s going to happen.  I’m hoping for an olive loaf myself. (My grandmother’s name is Olive).

The Key Lime pie I made is an almost perfect example of hope, expectation and working with what you have…sort of like a child.  I had planned to make Key Lime pie, but ultimately it ended up being just a regular Lemon Lime Pie…no fancy title, but still damn tasty (the pie, not the child).  Do my original expectations make it any less appealing, do I judge it differently, do I wish it had blonde hair and blue eyes like it’s father…?  No, I love it for being what it is.  It’s just who I am.