Surpies!

These pies were buckled up more than anyone else in the car, I'm sure

Pies, get it? Yeah...my title sounds lame even reading it. And yet, that still doesn't keep me from deleting it. But this whole post is about pies, so consider yourself warned.
Every year I have to relearn how to make a pie crust. Thankfully, my first tries are getting better and better, and perhaps soon I'll be able to just make a pie crust without a practice one first.
A few weeks ago, I was feeling festive, so I made a pumpkin pie to start of the holiday season. I made it from a pumpkin I bought here at the supermarket. I've got to say, China's pumpkins are really tasty! America's pumpkins are bred to be bright orange, round, and hollow in the middle. The flesh is pretty thin and waxy, and it doesn't usually get eaten. But here, it's like they breed the food to be eaten, or something weird like that. I couldn't carve a Chinese pumpkin if my life depended on it, unless I had a power jigsaw. The hole in the middle is about the size of my fist, and the rest of the thing is wonderful orange squash. So I made one into a pie.
Then the other day at the Consulate, there was a Thanksgiving shindig where we cut to the good stuff and just had apple cider and pies. I made a couple of lemon-meringue pies, and since this is my blog, I am going to brag for a moment. Or a few moments.
Making pies while watching two kiddos is an all-day endeavor. I packed up the girls and the stroller to go down to breakfast, and we left from breakfast to get lemons and sugar from the grocery store. Fast-forward to 11:00 PM, and I finally took the pies out of the oven. Oh, I did a lot in between those steps, but for most of the day there was flour, half-made pie crusts, or partially made pies on the countertops.
While I make pies, I always remember that line from Mary Poppins: "Oh, that's a pie crust promise; easily made, easily broken." I'm not sure where she got her idea that pie crusts are easily made, because mine sure aren't! I made these wrong, forgetting to prick them before baking them. They still tasted wonderful, but the whole thing poofed up in the middle, bringing the sides down about an inch or so. Ugh! Live and learn. And relearn.
We don't have a mixer, so I called around and borrowed one. I pulled it out to make the meringues at 10:00, and..... it didn't work. Gaaahhhh! So I got out my whisk and started beating. I've made a hand-whipped meringue in the past, and it was all of one centimeter tall. Basically, it was like pouring scrambled eggs on top of the pie. But this time, I used cream of tartar (like the recipe calls for... whoda thunk!), and the meringue whipped right up into a 2" froth. I couldn't move my arm the next day, but it was worth it.
The saddest part of my Thanksgiving was that the lemon part stayed a little goopy, so no one really ate much at the pie party. Sadly, this meant I had to bring 3/4 of both pies back home, and even more sadly, I had to eat them all myself.
I might have to make another one just to numb the pain.