Lilith Saintcrow

You may well suspect I’ve lost my mind, dear gentle Reader, for this afternoon, for no discernible reason, I baked a pie.

It’s just your basic garden-variety apple pie. I’ve found the easiest and quickest way to do it is just to buy frozen pie shells. (I do NOT have the patience for piecrust or the space to roll one out.) Turn your oven to 380-400 (more about that below.) Take them out to thaw while you quarter, core, cut the quarters into thirds, and peel the thirds of four to five good-sized Granny Smith apples.

Now, some like Golden Delicious in pies, but the only apple that will do for me is Granny Smith. Red Delicious and Golden Delicious turn too mealy, and the Red Delicious that is not mealy is meant for immediate consumption, not baking. Fujis and Braeburn might do in a pinch, but they’re just too sweet. Granny Smith are tart enough and hold up well enough, even if they’re a bit old, to be consistent bakeable apples.

You need to dump the peeled slices into a bowl of water with three or four generous squirts of lemon juice added to keep them from browning. (Incidentally, the way to keep your hash browns from turning gray and mooshy is to put the grated potatoes immediately in a bowl of cold water with some sea salt.) The kids love this part, because the Little Prince’s job is to put the slices in the water and the Princess is kept occupied making sure each slice gets dipped so it doesn’t brown. (Also, the Little Prince is on cleanup duty for whatever bits of apple peel escape to the floor. Hey, we don’t have a dog. The boy doesn’t eat them, he just throws ‘em away.)

Anyway, when the apples are soaking, you want a cup of sugar, a couple tablespoons of flour or cornstarch, five or six VERY generous shakes of cinnamon (I love my cinnamon) and a bedewing of nutmeg. I even occasionally do half and half with brown sugar and white sugar, if I’m feeling exotic. Stir the sugar and spices, drain the apples, and dump them into the sugar mess. Stir with wooden spoon or rubber spatula until the slices are all covered in sugary goodness. A few more squirts of lemon juice or a teensy bit of vinegar may also go into this mess to provide a little added bite and tang.

Prick the bottom pie shell gently a few times with a fork. (Even if you’re not prebaking this is a good idea.) Add a few small dabs of butter to the bottom, spoon your sugary apples into the shell (I use a ladle) and make sure they’re even. You can dump the syrup form the bowl into the shell too if you like your pie juicy. (I do.) A few more dabs of butter on top of the apples–it helps the crust–then you turn the empty pie shell over the full one(remember to loosen the edges gently from the tin pan first) and voila, you’ve got your pie.

You need to gently press the edges of the two shells together with a fork. The crust will look messy and that’s OK. Pie does not need to be perfect.

Now you need to vent it–some people prick the top crust with a fork a few times, others make two to four decorative slits with a sharp knife. Either’s fine, but don’t forget to do one. Steam from the apples has to escape, and the vents will also make the crust sink down and conform to the apples.

You can put a pie shield on, which is a ring that fits over the edge of the crust to keep it from burning. If you are cheap and lazy like me you can line the edges of the crust loosely with tinfoil. (I like the nonstick stuff.) You stick your pie in the oven and bake anywhere from thirty to fifty minutes.

You need to know your oven, which is why I’ve given ranges for temperature and time. My oven works best for this at about 395 degrees and about thirty-eight minutes. Ten minutes before it’s done, take off the pie shield or the tinfoil. This will brown the pie all over. Some ambitious people brush the top of the pie with egg white at this point. That is entirely too much work for me, but it does give a nice “glaze.” The fanciest I ever get is scattering some white sugar over the top of the crust before sticking it in the oven.

Once you’ve baked a few pies or cookies you can smell when something’s done. It’s a very discernable change in the aroma, maybe caramelized sugar (for cookies) or hot shortening (for pie crust.) Follow your nose instead of the timer. You’ll be glad you did. In any case, the worst that can happen is that the apples will still be firm, which is no bad thing.

Cool the pie on a wire rack. I like to let mine cool completely. Some peeps like it while still warm, but I’d say at LEAST let it cool and “set” for fifteen minutes. Then, enjoy with whatever you like on your pie–cheddar cheese, vanilla ice cream, Cool Whip, whipped cream, or (the way I like mine) naked as the cook created it.

Mmmmh. Pie. *wearing a look of glaze-eyed contentment*

I could get to like this cooking thing. I suspect I have only recently acquired the patience to do it, as well as enough distance from the hellish experience of trying to cook dinner pretty much every night since I was eight years old. *shiver* When your parents love Velveeta, there’s not much a girl can do.

Now if I could just figure out how to cook meat I suspect I’d be okay. Any tips, anyone?

Posted at the Midnight Hour about when a book becomes a village. *grin*

Tired. Very tired. So I shall bid adieu. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Courtesy of Yanniconny on my flist, this link to Feynman’s classic description of how the textbook-buying system really works.

Every time I think I shouldn’t homeschool my kids, something like this comes up. Keep your standardized tests and your corrupt school boards and textbook companies. I’m responsible for preparing my kids for life and college, thxkbai.

Grrrr.

This is why I never went in to be a police officer: what on earth was he doing with a chicken? I get all my chaos in kid-sized doses nowadays, and that is enough for me. Stuff like this is just like symptoms of the universe’s inherent freakiness, not to mention its ADD.

Now, stuff like THIS just tweaks me off. Let’s make it even harder for college kids to get books! Now, mind you, I just bought books for the UnSullen One’s next quarter and am feeling the pain. But this is just ridiculous–a college bookstore saying ISBNs are their “intellectual property.”

I have two words for this: “MY A$$!” WTF, people? Looking for books online isn’t a crime. I know college bookstores are feeling the pinch, but that’s what happens when a monopoly gets broken. They could start carrying other things or charging reasonable prices for books. Yes, I know the makers of textbooks are pond scum. (It didn’t take more than one trip through a book titled Ten Things Your History Teacher Never Told You before I figured THAT out. No child left behind? My rosy red bum.) But if the colleges stopped letting the textbook makers BE pond scum, imagine–kids might get a real education instead of just indoctrination.

In case you can’t tell, I waxed indignant about this, yea verily.

For a change of page, here’s an ossuary or two for you. I put catacombs and ossuaries under Hagia Sophia in the fifth Valentine book, having long been fascinated with both.

Speaking of another area of fascination, I got into Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth last night. It was certainly published in 1972. The gender roles he’s trying to assign to paleolithic society barely wash. The first tool wasn’t a fire-hardened spear, it was a woman’s digging stick. In hunting and gathering societies, meat is not going to be anything more than a valued addition. It is the gathering, not the hunting, that brings in the most food.

Despite some trouble with some passages wherein I wanted to heave offending book across the room, I took a deep breath, reminded myself that this wasn’t a reason to discount the basic premise–that Homo religiosis, Man the Religious, has his roots in Homo necans, Man the Killer. Having to “atone” for slaughter is an old, old human instinct, and I can see it informing organized religion to this very day.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no trouble with noting differences in gender roles in the Paleolithic or any other era. What I mind is using those “perceived” gender roles (which tend to say more about the one doing the perceiving than the actual roles themselves) to prop up established modes of gender inequality in current society. As Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor once pointed out, we are given a version of human history that says Man evolutionizes and woman is dragged along by her hair, when the more accurate view would be that Man is dragged along by woman’s refusal to put up with more of his crap endangering the children, triggering a step forward for the human race as a whole. (I am, of course, taking a great deal of license with Mor and Sjoo’s views, but given the circumstances I can’t think they’d mind.)

What? You ask if I’m a feminist? Damn straight. I’m female, I’ve got kids, I’m feminist. When ladies are earning a dollar to the dollar a man earns around the world, when women own half the property instead of only less than ten bare percent, and when a woman doesn’t have to worry about rape or domestic violence, then I will say we have outgrown feminism and not before. And I see no problem with noting that academia, more often than not, is skewed toward glorifying the male gender and taking it as the baseline of humanity, viewing the female as an “aberration.” Which just about makes me mad enough to spit, but I content myself with noting it, taking a deep breath, and moving on.

Anyway, enough ranting. Any more and I’d have to go buy a bra so I could burn it. Which, given how I feel about uncomfortable female underclothes, is a fair indication of my mood. Why do boys get all the comfy knickers? *tongue in cheek* It’s a CONSPIRACY, I tell you! */tongue in cheek*

Anyway, it’s time to get back to work. Wish me luck–and let’s hope I can get through this book. I finished Streets of Laredo (I know I said I couldn’t do it, but I got in there and stuck it out and finished, by golly) and I am dosing myself with the French Revolution to recover. *shiver* Seriously, it was that bad.

Have a nice Thursday, Readers!

I try and trace them to my youth…

Two things that are either cool or made me snorfle with laughter: Bianca van der Werf’s photography (cool, link stolen from the Musecrack community) and LOLThulu, stolen from Spiderfarmer (makes me snorfle.) The LOLThulu is almost as good as the Miskatonic State University bumper stickers. I especially like the “I’m Off UR Coast, Mutatin UR Villagers” one.

I managed to get through one pass on Night Shift–the beta reader’s suggestions. Today and tomorrow is for the editor’s suggestions/revisions, and then it gets sent back to my lovely, wonderful, marvelous editor, She Who Must Be Appeased With Chocolate. (I should send more Truffle Pig.)

Wonderful thing about writing: naming your vampires after bathtub ring. AWESOME! I wanted some vampires that weren’t cute and sexy. It’s been a while since I’ve had some serious nosferatu-rotting corpse-just plain nasty vampire action. So true to form, I’ve decided to write it myself.

But not until the third Jill book. Note to self: sounding disconnected this morning. Must drink more coffee.

As soon as I finish the edits on Night Shift it’s back into Redemption Alley. I have to get Jill in a fight before she leaves the barrio. I ALSO have to get her car–a cherried-out orange 70s Impala–blown up sometime this book.

I know a lot of you have been concerned about me, because I have fallen so far behind on email etc. Thanks for worrying–things are pretty intense, for a few reasons I’d rather not name. I’m just keeping my head down and working, and hoping everything gets better. Because, you know, I’ve got books to write. I can’t afford to be out of commission.

The one thing I can talk about is health stuff. I am feeling a bit under the weather, though the heat has finally broken and we’re looking at 70-degree days instead of 90-degree sweltering pitboxes called “days” that don’t even cool off at night. While that’s good, I have some old injuries acting up and some other stuff that makes it a tad bit uncomfy to be in my skin lately, probably due to the stress. It’s not all teacakes and roses being me, ya know.

Though some days–like when my editor sends me a clutch of YA books–it’s downright awesome.

So. There’s Indigo Girls songs I need to play, to get myself in the mood for being in Jill’s head when she finds out a Few Unpleasant Things. In the meantime…because I loff my flist, here’s LIVE-ACTION THUNDERCATS!!!!!

You can thank me later. *long screechy laugh*