Lemon Meringue Pie and seeing God

by Amy

“’I have a question for you,’ Gamache said, his change of tone alerting Reine-Marie. ‘Did I do the right thing with Arnot?’

Reine-Marie’s heart broke, hearing Armand ask that. Only she knew the price he’d paid. He’d put on a brave and firm public face. Not Jean Guy, not Michel Brébeuf, not even their best friends had known the agony he’d gone through. But she knew.

[…]

But he’d known all along what he had to do. And the fisherman had put it beyond doubt.”

We all need validation sometimes.

There is comfort in the certainty that someone, preferably someone who is an authority in any given subject, endorses us.

Little signs. Serendipity. Coincidences. Proof. The writing on the wall.

“Where there is love, there is courage
Where there is courage, there is peace

Where there is peace, there is God.
And when you have God, you have everything.”

Omniscient. Omnipresent. Who could be better to assure us that we’re on the right track than God himself? There is no greater authority. Be it in the guise of a fisherman or a homeless woman, He can give us the love, courage, and peace we need.

“You don’t know either,” said Myrna. “You want to believe it was God. I have to tell you, people are locked up for less.”

I suppose faith can seem like a form of insanity when you don't believe.

“I tell them there are certain attributes our faith assigns to God: omniscience, omnipotence, justice, and grace. We human beings have such a slight acquaintance with power and knowledge, so little conception of justice, and so slight a capacity for grace, that the workings of these great attributes together is a mystery we cannot hope to penetrate.” (Gilead – Marilynne Robinson)

One of the things I love about Louise Penny’s books is Gamache’s faith. He respects religion, he respects symbols and ritual and tradition. He even respects those who have no religion and/or no faith in the existence of a God. He isn’t preachy. But he has faith.  He believes in God – although he does not always condone or agree with all the man-made rules and traditions and rituals that have sprung from the interpretation of Scriptures.

I do not intend to turn this into a religious discussion. I certainly do not intend to preach. I don’t think faith can be explained into existence – nor can any explanation dissuade you from it if you believe. I do believe that God is bigger than doubts – anyone’s doubts. Including my own.

One of my favorite scenes with a clergyman was the answer given to the main character by a local priest in Andrew Davidson’s THE GARGOYLE. When the main character is found admiring statues in the church, he promptly tells the priest that he is an atheist. The priest doesn't hesitate:

“‘Well, God believes in you,’ he said. ‘May I offer you a cup of tea?’”

In A FATAL GRACE, both Clara and Gamache believe they met with God. Both are blessed with encounters that edify them and give them the validation they need.

“There was no movement. Clara grew concerned. Was she even alive? Clara reached out and gently lifted the grime-caked chin.
“Are you all right?”
A mitten shot out, black with muck, and cupped itself round Clara’s wrist. The head lifted. Weary, runny eyes met Clara’s and held them for a long moment.
“I have always loved your art, Clara.”
“But that’s incredible,” Myrna didn’t want to sound as though she doubted her friend, but really, ‘incredible’ was charitable. It was unbelievable. And yet despite the cup of tea and fire in the grate her forearms broke out in goosebumps.”

It was unbelievable.

If you don’t believe in God, it’s just an interesting coincidence and wishful thinking. If you do, a homeless woman probably wouldn’t the first image that pops into your head when you think of Him.

Well, I do believe in God. I also believe that God isn’t a homeless woman or a fisherman. But I believe God has a sense of humor and endless creativity. Just as the “heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1), I think the men and women he created in his image are also capable of, at times, being His emissaries.

I may be wrong, but I think that is how Gamache interprets it. He does believe the writing on the wall is a message from God. It doesn’t necessarily mean he believes Billie is God.

“He asked me to give you this.” She held up the small paper bag on her lap, protecting it from their latest family member. Henri sat in the back seat, listening alertly to their conversation and wagging his tail. Reine-Marie opened the bag to show Gamache a slice of lemon meringue pie.”

When Gamache was given the message from God he was eating lemon meringue pie. Don’t you love how there’s an olfactory and savory memory associated with the message? Isn’t it wonderful that, from then on, lemon meringue pie would be a reminder that God not only cared about his worries, but was willing to send him comfort in the person of a stranger?

My family recently went through a phase where doubts and questions abounded and decisions had to be made. There were no right or wrong answers, but one choice precluded others and had rippling effects on our lives. My husband and I talked, weighed alternatives, engaged in “what if” conversations… and prayed.

One day my husband came home and said, “You know what? This happened. It must be a sign for us to choose plan A.” If you knew my husband, you'd understand when I say he is not the type to look for signs - or to give them credence even if they come knocking. The next day he called me mid-morning and said, “You know what? This OTHER thing just happened. I think it’s a sign that God is saying that He isn’t really sending signs.”

We laughed.

But there were more of them. Little signs. Serendipity. Coincidences. The writing on the wall.

Like Gamache, we knew what we had to do. It still made us feel blessed and comforted that God was willing to send us "writing on the wall" and the memory of those moments – like the memory of the lemon meringue pie – to assure us that we’re making the right decision.

“Where there is love, there is courage
Where there is courage, there is peace

Where there is peace, there is God.
And when you have God, you have everything.”

Lemon meringue pie is actually a VERY frequent dessert in our home. Lime meringue pie, actually. It’s one of my husband’s favorites and we make it often. I don’t even think we have a recipe!

The dough for the pie crust is usually made with flour, butter, an egg and a splash of water (if needed). I’m not sure about amounts. Sometimes I use butter and an equivalent of graham crackers to make a cookie crust. I’ve been known to buy ready-made pie crusts when we’re in the US and I’m being lazy.

The creamy filling is the same (see? I have so few recipes!) lime filling that we use on every dessert apparently. Just mix the juice from two limes or two lemons with 1 can of condensed milk.

Then we add meringue. It’s supposed to be beaten egg whites and then you add a couple of tablespoons of refined sugar and keep beating the egg whites until they make peaks. Then bake for a few minutes just until the tips of the peaks start to brown.

One day we didn’t have refined sugar in the house. Or white sugar at all. We just added brown cane sugar, crossed our fingers and hoped it wouldn’t turn out too weird. It did turn out a bit odd. In a good way, according to my husband.

Now my husband has a new favorite pie. It doesn’t look as beautiful. The meringue is flatter and it tends to have this caramel-like gooey layer between the cream and the meringue. He says it’s the best thing EVER, though.

Since then, that’s how the pie has been made here. One day we didn't have brown sugar... He was terribly disappointed with the beautiful white peaks of meringue that didn't have the caramel-gooeyness he loves. Not that it stopped him from eating it...

Part 2 of Olivier’s tray: Chocolate-Coffee Mousse Pie & Apple Tarts

by Amy

You were a moth  

Brushing against my cheek

in the dark.

I killed you,

not knowing

you were only a moth,

with no sting.

The setting is familiar. We’re at the Bistro. Yolande, Jane’s niece, has just walked in and Clara decides to pay her respects. Everyone is cringing, snooping, and observing. Silence rules. Yolande is playing up to the scene. She wipes her dry eyes with a paper napkin and her acting is superb – although she didn’t convince the many people who had truly loved Jane and remembered what her relationship with Yolande had been like.

“I’m the official caterer for the disaster that’s about to happen. I can’t imagine why Clara is doing this, she knows what Yolande has been saying behind her back for years. Hideous woman.”

Why does Clara do it? She’d been planning a ritual, in Jane’s honor, when…

“Clara had spotted Yolande and her family arriving at the Bistro and knew she’d have to say something.”

It doesn’t say why. So we are left, like Olivier, wondering. I can empathize, though. I tend to also be the kind of person who always feels like she has to say something. And I often find myself, in the aftermath, feeling as Clara did after her interaction with Jane’s niece:  stupid, stupid, stupid.

“When she’d gone over to speak with Yolande, Clara had known this would happen. Known that Yolande, for some unfathomable reason, could always get to her. Could hurt her where most others couldn’t reach. It was one of life’s little mysteries that this woman she had absolutely no respect for, could lay her flat. She thought she’d been ready for it. She’d even dared to harbor a hope that maybe this time would be different. But of course it wasn’t.”

Clara’s one of those rare people that knows how things are – or can be – but still nurtures hope that things might be different. She doesn’t act on the (very high) probability that she’ll get hurt. She acts on the unlikely chance that this time, maybe this time it’ll be okay.

I wonder why nobody stopped her. I understand why Gamache wouldn’t. He was in the middle of a murder investigation and this was a perfect opportunity to observe the suspects. But why didn’t anyone else stop her? They just stood back and watched. I’ve been stopped before. By a whisper. A look. A nudge. An elbow. A little kick… No one stopped Clara.

I wonder if any of them had tried before, in similar occasions, and realized it couldn’t be done? I wonder if they understood the importance and were hoping against hope not that Yolande would be different ( I think only Clara would go that far), but that Clara would finally stand up for herself (I think Clara only really begins to do that in A TRICK OF THE LIGHT).

Regardless, it feels real. Doesn’t it? Louise Penny knows her characters. As Marilynne Robinson says in her collection of essays, WHEN I WAS A CHILD I READ BOOKS:

“There is a great difference, in fiction and in life, between knowing someone and knowing about someone. When a writer knows about his character he is writing for plot. When he knows his character he is writing to explore, to feel reality on a set of nerves somehow not quite his own."

I think part of the beauty in Louise Penny’s books is that she knows her characters and writes real ideas through fiction. I believe that fiction is, in a way, real. Fiction, as all art, is an interpretation of reality as seen and experienced by the author. Authors are able to put themselves in others’ shoes and write characters that make us feel along with them. And Penny excels in this art.

I can easily imagine myself in the Bistro. I’d probably try to stand next to Olivier so I could eat all of the dessert options on his tray. I probably wouldn’t stop Clara either. I probably would have watched, silently (or whispering to Olivier – or maybe Gabri. I’d love to hear Gabri’s take on the scene). Then I’d probably tell myself, I knew it! when Yolande, true to character, put Clara down. I can also imagine myself in Clara’s shoes, knowing something must be said (although I ask myself, WHY?) and being disappointed when the response wasn’t what I’d hoped for. 

What I cannot picture is being in Peter’s shoes. If I were Peter, I’d be standing next to Clara. I’d be squeezing her hand. I can understand – even applaud – that he felt Clara had to stand up for herself. He couldn’t – or maybe shouldn’t – do it for her. He wasn’t even available for moral support, though. He wasn’t beside her. And I think it’s interesting that, once hurt, Clara’s first reaction is to want Jane back. She’s surrounded by friends but none of them, not even her husband, can fulfill that role in her life. I think Myrna will, eventually, to an extent. But for now, it’s a Jane-shaped hole.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid. […] She wanted to run to Jane, who’d make it better. Take her in those full, kindly arms and say the magic words, ‘There, there.’”

Libby did an incredible job of making mille feuilles, meringues and little custard tarts. I made pie and little apple custard tarts – which were, in reality, an improvisation using left-over bits from a lemon meringue pie recipe. The pie was a dark chocolate coffee mousse pie which was so incredibly good I made it twice in as many weeks.

Chocolate Coffee Mousse Pie

Ingredients:

Crust

-          1 package of 200g of graham cookies (or similar)

-          100g grams of softened or room temperature butter

Filling

-          4 egg yolks

-          6 TBS of sugar

-          1 cup of heavy cream

-          200g of dark chocolate – chopped in big bits

-          1 TBS instant coffee

-          4 egg whites

Instructions:

Crumble the cookies and use a blender or a food processor to turn them into a flaky powder. Add butter and smash with your fingers until it’s the consistence of crust. Spread it on a pie pan and bake for about 10 minutes. Let it cool. You can always buy the ready-made kind (which we don’t have here), but this is so easy to make I think it’s worth it.

For the filling, beat the egg yolks with 4 spoons of sugar (I used 2) in a mixer until it doubles in volume and becomes a bit lighter in color. Set aside.

Heat the cream in bain-marie (I just put a glass bowl in a pan with 2 inches of water in it over the stove top. I improvised a bain-marie since I didn’t have the “proper” pan). Add the pieces of dark chocolate and the instant coffee powder and mix until you have a smooth cream. Add the egg yolk mix and mix well. Set aside.

Mix the egg whites and then add 2 TBS of sugar. Add this to the cream, but only fold it in gently without mixing much. The beaten egg whites are what will give it the airy mousse consistency. Pour this cream over your crust and place it in the refrigerator. Once it is firm (4 to 5 hours later), enjoy!

Apple Tarts

I used left-over pie crust dough and placed it in muffin tins. I baked that for about 10 minutes.

I mixed the juice of two lemons with 1 can of condensed milk to make the tart filling. It’s the same idea for the filling I usually use for lime meringue pie. That’s all you have to do. Mix them and place it in the fridge and it's the perfect consistency. I frequently use this also as a form of custard to serve with fresh fruit. It’s always a hit.

Then I sliced apples – thin slices covered in lemon juice so they wouldn’t brown – and placed them on the filling. I added a sprinkle of brown sugar.  I then placed them in the oven just long enough so the sugar would melt a bit and the apple slices would bake. These were sooooo good. Well, tastes vary. My husband thought it was too tart and not sweet enough. I thought it was just right. 

Except for the quote from Marilynne Robinson's WHEN I WAS A CHILD I READ BOOKS, the other quotes are from Still Life - pages 104 to 106 in the paperback version.

Pumpkin Pie

by Amy

The pie in the Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner is almost an afterthought. We only know they even had it because their stomachs are described as being full of pumpkin pie (along with turkey, port, and expresso) as they say their goodbyes.

I wonder who the baker was and whether or not it was anticipated and appreciated. In my own home, when a pie is baked, my husband spends most of the meal saving stomach space for dessert. He’s discreet about it (if guests are present), but he keeps an eye on the slices as they leave the plate and mentally calculates how long the pie will last. I don’t think he’s ever eaten a last slice without asking when the next one will be baked.

This was my first time making a pumpkin pie. Maybe it’s because pies are usually baked with aforementioned pie-loving husband in mind. I tend to ignore recipes that he won’t enjoy since I’ll end up eating them all by myself. Pumpkin doesn’t rank high (or anywhere near the middle) on his list of favorite flavors. Another (very likely) reason is because pumpkin pie is unusual in my part of the world and there is some truth to the cliché that ‘out of sight is out of mind’.

I’m sure I must have tasted it at some point, but I can’t remember. To me it is a “borrowed memory”; it is my mother’s favorite. My memory isn’t of the pie itself, but of hearing her praising the wonderful blend of cinnamon and nutmeg with pumpkin. I remember the nostalgic look in her eye when talking of autumn desserts shared with friends when we lived in the US decades ago.

She loves pumpkin pie, yet I don’t think she’s ever baked one here. She might have, once or twice, but while I remember listening to her talk about it, I have no visual memory of her actually eating a slice.

As soon as I realized it was on the list of meals for the blog, I called her. Mom said she started salivating as soon as she heard I was planning to share her favorite pie with her, but the one thing she repeated over and over was, “I love pumpkin pie. I don’t know why I never bake it!” Her voice held a hint of disbelief every time she said it. Now, it would make perfect sense if she didn’t cook or if she had never incorporated into her diet any of the dishes she’s learned from various international friends. However, we’re talking about a woman who bakes her own bread and who is fearless about tasting new dishes and adding to her repertoire from the flavors and meals she’s been introduced to by friends both here and abroad. So why doesn’t she bake pumpkin pie?

I wrote out the list of ingredients and realized most were staples in my pantry and none were hard to find. In the meantime, I pondered on why my mother had, for so many years, denied herself something that was so accessible.

It was only today that it came to me: a possible reason why. It is probably the same reason why I usually make the pies my husband likes best and why the only cake that can usually be found in our house is the only one my son eats (carrot). If what we love is not shared by those we love, there is less pleasure in indulging. Mothers frequently lose sight of their own preferences in their role as caretakers. If “the girls” (my sister and I) would rather eat fudge or brownies or chocolate chip cookies or rice crispy treats as reminders of a childhood in the US, she chose those over her own preference of pumpkin pie (which we’d probably have turned our noses at, at the time).

I think it’s easy to get lost in the needs of others. I may be wrong, though. I may be biased because I am surrounded by wonderful people who recognize joy in those around them and choose to rejoice with them. I was raised by parents who seemed to think nothing of meeting our needs and sharing our delight in the smallest of things. The same mother who never forgot to make chocolate chip cookies and brownies was the young woman who, during a much-anticipated cross-country trip, nodded a yes to two little girls who begged to stay longer playing in a plastic ball pit. With a young son of my own, I can now empathize with the young couple who gave up on their ambitious touristic schedule to sit quietly, smiling, as their daughters thwarted the family vacation plans. This is the same woman who now, as a grandmother, easily gives in to her grandchildren’s requests for “Again, vovó!” or “Can you stay a little longer?” The same woman who adjusts her plans to be there in our lives whenever and however she can.

No wonder she didn’t bake herself pumpkin pies. She was too busy thinking of what everyone else wanted. Now that I’m a mother myself, I can absolutely understand. There is a magical kind of pleasure in seeing your child enjoying something you have made or helped make possible.

So now I know that the taste of pumpkin pie will carry with it a three-fold reminder. I will now eat pumpkin pie and remember that (i) I was blessed with parents who taught me that they loved me enough to rejoice in my pleasures and opt to indulge in what I loved, at the expense of frequently putting aside their own preferences, (ii) I should remember to give my son – and others around me – the same loving gift, and (iii) I should bake my mother more pumpkin pies. She deserves it.

I asked mom if the pumpkin recipe lived up to her memories… She said it was delicious, but there seemed to be something missing. She’s right. I didn’t have powdered cloves. I’ll have to bake another one and, since this time we weren’t able to eat it together, we’ll try to make a date to indulge in what will now be a shared pleasure. With my mother, that is. My son refused to taste it. He might grow into it – I did.

The pumpkin pie is mentioned on page 25 of the paperback edition of Still Life.

Here’s the recipe I used: 

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/suzannes_old_fashioned_pumpkin_pie/