Two Stories and a Picture

To piggyback on Ann’s previous post I’ll tell you the two parts she mentioned. My flight itinerary was to leave Dallas at 7:50 p.m. CDT and arrive in Greenville-Spartanburg at 11:00 EDT. It was a direct flight so there was no concern about missing a connection since we left Dallas almost an hour late. It seemed as if the flight was going very, very long when the pilot came on and said that due to heavy fog at GSP we were being forced to land at Charlotte, NC. Dad, Mom, Mary and Joey went to GSP for my 11:00 arrival, but the police were there to tell them that the airport was shut down and they would have to leave. My flight landed in Charlotte and I was able to get off the plane just after midnight. The crew needed 11 hours off and then the plane would go to GSP at 11:00 the next morning. I really didn’t want to get to Mom and Dad’s early afternoon on Saturday and have only 27 hours there so I got in the rental car line. A man walked in and said he negotiated with a minivan taxi driver to take a group to GSP; at 12:30 AM I crawled into a minivan with 7 strangers and barreled down I-85 to Greenville/Spartanburg. Dad, Mom, Mary and Joey had gone back to Anderson which is about a 45-60 minute drive from the airport while I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Joey and Mary returned to the airport to pick me up just after 2 AM and then we got to Mom and Dad’s at 3:00.

It was a very short night!!!

And now for the pies as if the flight fiasco wasn’t enough.

My contribution to the brunch was to make a strawberry and a pecan pie as Mom loves pie. I thought about buying a Marie Callender’s triple berry, but it just seemed wrong to buy a pie for such a great pie maker!!! However, I did let go of my pride and used pie shells that Mom had made and had in the freezer.  I baked the shell for the strawberry pie while making the pecan pie mix. The pecan pie had to bake for 70 minutes. I was sure I had figured the time right, but then I messed up the timer while the pie was baking. I guessed at how much time was left. Mary told me we didn’t have nearly that amount of time before we were to leave for the restaurant. I didn’t know what to do especially because I was in the middle of the strawberry glaze fiasco. I followed a recipe for the glaze but it never gelled. I wondered if the corn starch was old and bad but Mom said she had never heard of that. I have never had the glaze not gel. I decided to try a second batch. Some recipes called to boil it for 1 minute and some for 3 minutes. I let it boil and boil and boil as I kept thinking it looked as if it was starting to gel. Finally yes, it was gelling!!! I took it off the stove and went to get the strawberries. A couple of minutes later I looked and the glaze was hard, hard, hard like sea crystals!!!

By then it was time to leave so we took the pecan pie out of the oven. The crust looked great and the top was obviously done but who knew what it was like underneath. Dad looked at it and said, “What kind of pie is that?” That didn’t help the situation. I cut a bit into the middle and it appeared to be runny. I just left it and by the time we were back from dinner it appeared to be just right.

After dinner we stopped at the grocery store to get “fresh” corn starch. I tried another batch of glaze, and same thing. By now I was determined to make this pie. I sacrificed more of my pride and asked Mom for help. Thankfully she got it to make glaze and not just a watery mixture of water, sugar and corn starch or crystals!

Some of you know of the many issues I have when flying so this just adds to my list of flying disasters. Thankfully the return trip Sunday evening was uneventful. There was not a cloud in the sky from GSP to DFW so I got to see such great scenery the entire trip.

In the end we had two pies that didn’t look that great but tasted ok, and made for an additional story of my weekend.

I’m also adding my favorite picture of the weekend—Andrew led everyone in singing Happy Birthday to Mom. After that she wanted him to do the same for John Michael. The only way Andrew could see was for JM to sit on Grandma’s lap!