Hey Friends and Family! Thanks for reading my memoir blog. I’m excited to share a lifetime of favorite eats. Although my first recipe is long, most that follow are short ones I’ve made again and again, often from memory. Please forgive my glitches–relearning this blog app at 84 has been a challenge, but it gives me a chance to work with son Dylan, who makes it all happen. I’m also still working on the format, and sorry, my photos won’t load. Prepare to zoom around time and space, powered by family, friends, chefs, cookbooks, the internet, and lots of good food.

1. PIE
When I turned sixteen in 1958, my mother finally let me do more than the dishes in our shiny new kitchen that boasted turquoise formica counters, a stainless steel refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom (!), and, above the latest double sink, a wall of windows overlooking our upscale neighborhood cul-de-sac. In this House Beautiful space, I was suddenly allowed to produce desserts. I was not to cook meals lest I ruin Dad’s dinner or a pricy piece of meat. Mother was a reluctant cook: For Sunday dinners or a rare guest, she produced simple steaks (medium rare), a pork or lamb roast, or, pièce de résistance, baby shrimp stuffed in a large fish. My job was cleaning up.

Excited to begin my first culinary adventure, I perused our only cookbook, the 1950 first edition of Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book. I went big with coconut cream pie, something that David James, our cook during my childhood in Pakistan, used to bake for us in our Lahore kitchen’s charcoal oven. I’d recently knit a blue wool cardigan by learning to read the tight small-print instructions peppered with abbreviations, so I was not intimidated by Betty’s recipe for pie. It was not, however, a piece of cake. In one Saturday, I learned to mix and roll a pie crust, cook an egg cream filling, whip up a mountain of meringue, and use the oven.

My pie was a family success! “More! More!” they cheered. So I have baked and baked, especially pies: apple, pumpkin, lemon meringue, blueberry, chocolate, cherry, pecan, and of course, coconut (or sometimes banana) cream. And guess what? Published recipes are not subject to copyright. My daughter-in-law, Ann Kuhn, let me borrow her Betty Crocker cookbook and her later edition still had the recipe. These days, to include no-dairy family, I make it with almond milk.

Although I’ve usually preferred simpler dishes, conquering this one gave me early confidence to take on new and complicated projects. I learned that by carefully following directions, I could make almost anything.

Betty Crocker’s Coconut Cream Pie
Make a single 9” pie crust. I make a vegan crust to for my no-dairy son. It’s totally delicious, although not as smoothly worked as a butter or Crisco crust. In a bowl add:

1 1/4 c. flour
1/3 c. oil (I use olive or sunflower seed oil.)
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. milk (I use soy or almond milk.)

Mix with fork until dough forms a ball. Roll out between sheets of waxed paper. Place crust in pie plate and prick all over with a fork. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Make one crust at a time.

Make the coconut cream filling.
2/3 cup sugar
3 TB cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups of milk (whole, soy, or almond milk)
3 lightly beaten egg yolks in a medium bowl.
(Save the whites for the meringue.)
1 TB butter or margarine
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flaked coconut

In a medium saucepan mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Stir in the milk. Stir
constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens and boils. Boil for 1 minute.
Remove from heat.

Gradually stir half the hot milk into the beaten egg yolks. Then blend the egg/ milk mixture back into the hot milk. Boil 1 minute stirring constantly. Stir in the butter, coconut, and vanilla. Remove from heat. Pour the hot custard into the baked pie shell and cool.

Make the meringue:
3 room-temperature egg whites
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar.
1/4 cup sugar
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). In a medium bowl, beat the room temperature egg whites until they form soft peaks, adding the cream of tartar and then the sugar one tablespoon at a time. Pile onto the cooled pie filling and use the back of a spoon to pull up pretty peaks. Bake for 20 minutes, or until meringue is lightly browned.

More Pie: BANANA CREAM: If you are out of coconut, slice a banana into the baked crust. Pour in the custard, top with meringue, and bake as instructed.