Have you ever gone out to eat only so you can order dessert? You too? I have seriously gone into a restaurant and asked them if they had any carrot cake before I ordered. You see, if there was carrot cake then I would get something sensible for lunch because I knew I would have dessert. But if they didn’t have carrot cake then I could have what I wanted. They have other desserts at that restaurant but the carrot cake is worth eating. Not that the others aren’t but …
I have always had a sweet tooth. It fluctuates from wanting cookies to cake to pie to candy. But I can always eat chocolate. Anything chocolate. I can remember spending the night with my grandmother when I was young and one of the reasons I did was because I knew there would be cream soda floats. My grandmother loved ice cream. She would take this big soda glass, fill it up with ice milk (it was lower in calories) and then add cream soda, or Big Red. Oh, and she was the first one to introduce me to Cool Whip. I could eat that right out of the tub. We would fix our floats and then prop ourselves up on her big bed and watch the black and white portable TV. Sometimes she would get ice box pies. You’ve seen these at the grocery store. They’re in the freezer. The one I liked the most was the chocolate one. Sometimes she would let me eat it right out of the pie pan. I didn’t bother with the crust. I just wanted the whipped topping mainly but if there was some chocolate attached to it then I would eat it until I was ready to pop.
When I got in high school Mom would make our lunch. It was always best right after she went to the grocery because then we would get the best lunch. Mom would fix a ham sandwich with mayonnaise and lettuce on round circle bread. She would send a handful of potato chips and a Ding Dong. This was back when they were named Ding Dongs, before they changed it to King Dons or something like that. I loved those things. I would make them last. I ate the chocolate first and then went after the cream in the middle. I ate the cake last. Yum. I haven’t had one of those in years. But I fault my mother with every time I have something salty I have to have something sweet.
I won’t bore you with everything else. I could tell you about the time a friend of Mom’s bought me a case of big block Hershey bars right after I started Weight Watchers. I used to unwrap one of those out of the refrigerator and let out a deep breath and then inhale that chocolate. Then I would wrap the bar back up and put it back in the case in the refrigerator. Or the time that I took my lunch hour and went to a quick shop and bought 3 candy bars for $1 and went behind the strip mall along with all the kids smoking pot and ate every one of those candy bars without anyone seeing me. Or the time I went on a mission to see who had the best chocolate chip cookies or brownies or coconut pie or chocolate pie.
My grandmother died when I was 22. She had been raised in the country and cooked like that. She made the best chocolate pie, ever. I went in search of pie that tasted like hers. If someone said they had chocolate pie I just had to have a piece. But I was always disappointed. It was not rich enough. It was not sweet enough. It didn’t have enough chocolate. After years of disappointment I decided to contact my last surviving aunt and ask her if she had the recipe. She did. I am so proud that I have that recipe in my aunt’s handwriting.
I set out to make the pie. Not just anyone can master a chocolate meringue pie from scratch. But I can tell you that I was willing to make it happen. And I will tell you that following that recipe was so easy but producing Grandma’s pie was anything but. A chocolate pie from scratch has got to be watched the entire time. And then comes the meringue. The best part of the meringue is that when you screw up you don’t screw up the whole pie. You can scrape that meringue right off and start again. And it took about 6 tries and lots of advice before I got it anywhere near what I was looking for. Grandma’s recipe called for 2 eggs. The egg yolks went in the filling, the egg whites made the meringue. I quickly learned that 2 egg whites was not enough. I needed 6 or 8. I also learned not to broil the meringue. It will burn in a heart beat. But when I finally got it where I wanted it I discovered that I had my grandmother’s pie. And I also discovered why my dad and grandmother were diabetic. That is the richest, sweetest, most comforting pie that I ever put in my mouth.
One thing I know with a piece of pie or cake or cookie or whatever, that first bite tells you if it’s worth eating or not. And when I put Grandma’s chocolate pie in my mouth, or Joan Toon’s coconut pie, or Wilma Hobbs’ Italian Cream Cake, that first bite just melts all the way down my throat and I can’t wait for the next bite and the next. Because everyone knows that you always have to leave room for dessert.