Blog 8

Just For Her

              Mom's Pie

My mother recalls the weekend I came home after making the pie. She smiled as she spoke of my excitement. She said “You just wanted to cook. You used up all my flour and sugar and had no idea what you were doing but you were happy so I let you mess up my stuff.” I do not know what she was remembering but I knew I was a baker when I had come home that weekend. My first three attempts to recreate my masterpiece were not so fortunate as she adamantly laughed and remembered but I did finally figure it out. I thought to myself that maybe my motivation was not the same so I changed my focus. My mom loved coconut so I figured if I made a coconut custard pie she would like it more so than the other.

My mom said that I came home one day begging to go to the store to get stuff for “her pie” which was supposed to compel her to give me money to buy the ingredients. She said I always thought I was slick; I tried to entice her by appealing to her appetite. She went along and allowed me to go to the store. Of course the corner store did not have any of the ingredients I needed so I needed to go to the big supermarket which I was accustomed to doing as the only man in the house. So off to the market I went.

My mom recalled being upset when I returned from the supermarket as she said I went overboard. She said I bought so much stuff and just wasted her money on a bunch of junk. I just bought the bare essentials: regular crust, deep dish crust, premade roll-out crust, sweetened coconut, coconut milk, eggs, sugar and flavor. I had to make sure I had everything to make this pie a success, no matter how many times I needed to try. So while she was upset, I was still motivated to get it right. This time I secretly called my aunt to get her help.

My mom said that I kept insisting that she stay in her room because she made me nervous while I was trying to cook even though she never once came in the kitchen. Again, she obliged and stayed in her room. She said she heard pots banging and water splashing. She did yell at me a few times because of the noise I was creating but I tuned her out she said. She said she remembers me fighting my two younger sisters because they kept coming in the kitchen and they were “disrupting me” and making me “lose my concentration”. I got in more trouble that afternoon trying to cook than I did on any other given day but I was focused.

My mom said after about three hours I called her to help me put the pie in the refrigerator so it could cool off very quick so she could eat it. She said after she did that, I immediately told her to “please get out my kitchen!” She had no idea why I still needed privacy and she told me I better leave her alone because I had my time in there but I kept on pushing until she finally gave up and retreated to her room.

She said she heard more banging and clanging but this time she did not say anything. There was no water splashing, no fighting, and no chaos so she stayed quiet and in her room watching LA Law. She said it was so quiet that she forgot that she was even told to stay away from the kitchen because she was so caught up in her show. She said after about an hour she got up to use the restroom when she began to smell something sweet.

After leaving the restroom she remembers asking what were we doing and I said yelled out nothing. She said it was way too quiet so she came into the dining room and saw my sisters sitting on the floor, eating and watching television. She said when she came into the kitchen, her pie was cooled, sitting atop the counter-top and I was eating pie. She said she asked where the other pie came from and I told her it was my egg custard pie. She said she asked where it came from and I told her I made it while her pie was chilling in the fridge.

She said she asked me how were we all eating pie and she had to wait for hers to cool off and I replied, “I knew my pie was gonna be good hot but that nasty coconut needs time.” She remembered slicing her pie, tasting it and saying “My baby did well!”  She said I did not even notice her eating her pie because I was too busy eating mine and asking my sisters if they liked it. She told me the pie was good and I needed to take some to my grandmother who lived a block over from us.

My mom ate two slices and wrapped up three slices for me to take down the street to my grandmother. She called to let my aunt know I was making my way down the street and to look out for me. She said I was so happy and proud of my pies. As I prepared to leave the house she recalled saying within herself that her baby was going to cook because she had never seen my face light up, inspired in such a way ever before.