Just so you know that I’m not the only one in the family that has funny fiascos, this story was just sent to me by my precious cousin, Marion who lives in Miami. She shared this story with me and gave me permission to use it here. It will bring a smile to your face when you read it. I told her to stick with teaching art and get out of the kitchen before it’s too late…..so here it is: (Cora, this should make you feel better about your cupcake caper)
Steven told me that when we traveled to the Carolinas on vacation his family would prepare many home-made, southern meals for us we would have difficulty eating everything. However, not one home cooked meal was cooked for us the entire month of July except for the meatless, Texas chilli I cooked for Steven’s vegetarian sister in North Carolina. Needless to say, I’ve been in a cooking mood ever since we returned from vacation. Two days ago I cooked fried pork chops, collard greens (from my “Shrimp, Collards & Grits cookbook I found in Savannah), corn-on-th-cob, and risotto w/mushrooms & golden raisins. Ummmmmmmmm Good!!!! The collards were amazing so today, I found a great recipe for buttermilk pie in the same Savannah cookbook. I bought the ingredients and everything was going fine as I carefully measured and prepared the ingredients exactly as the recipe instructed. The 9″ pie plates with uncooked pie crusts were also prepared just as the recipe stated.

As I poured the pre-tasted, delicious pie filling in the 9″ pie shells I thought that they looked really full, but who am I to question Ervena Faulkner, a retired educator, a popular columnist for the Beaufort Gazette and a published cook? Her recipe says to pour the filling into unbaked pie crust in 9” pie plates so that’s what I did. Then I put the excessively filled pie shells in the pre-heated oven anticipating the sweet, succulent flavor my home made, Low Country Buttermilk Pies.

No more than 5 minutes later the kitchen, the dinning room, the living room, the bedrooms, the entire house was filled with smoke billowing from the oven and everything in the house instantly absorbed the burnt buttermilk oder. I threw open the oven door to discover that both pies had overflowed and my sweet, pungent pie filling was burning into a large, black crisp on the bottom of my oven. I turned off the oven and tried to rescue my pies, but the smoke attacked my eyes as I grabbed the pies and I spilled even more filling on the oven door, the kitchen floor and counters. I opened the sliding glass doors, turned all the ceiling fans on high and soaked the furniture and air with an entire can of Febreeze. Then I cleaned up as much of the spilled filling as possible.

I had been preparing lunch as my pies began to cook, but we were forced to eat our lunch on the patio in the rain to escape the smoke and fumes. After lunch, Steven scraped as much of the crispy pie filling from the oven as possible, then I shut the oven door and set the knob to “self clean”. Thank goodness for modern technology! I hurried around the house closing the interior doors to prevent the smoke from contaminating the air in our bedrooms.

Eventually when the oven is clean again, I will put my pies back in the oven to finish cooking, but I worry about their success after the cooking process was interrupted and the sweet, creamy filling will probably taste like burnt charcoal. What a fiasco!! When I closed all the interior doors in the house, I didn’t I know that my bedroom door locked. Steven tried to coax the lock open for 20 minutes with no success. Not only is my pie episode a complete disaster, I have no idea when I’ll be able to re-enter my bedroom and bathroom. The last time I saw the key to that door was in 1979 when I bought the house 32 years ago. Please….that key is long gone!

Here I sit with all the windows and doors open while the air conditioner runs full blast and my electric bill triples with no buttermilk pies. Next time I get the urge to make a home-made pie I’ll just go to the grocery store and buy one like I usually do.

I just had to share this idea with you. Yesterday at church, I was visiting with a friend and asking her if she got moved into their new place. She told me that yes, they had moved and that several of the ladies from our class had come over and helped her line her shelves and got her kitchen all put together. I stood there and thought about that and how nice that was for people to still go over to help a friend get settled. But, as I was thinking about how I should have thought about going over to help, she began to tell me what they did. Instead of buying the normal shelf paper which can get pretty expensive if you have lots of kitchen cabinets, she had gone and bought a box of the cheapest linolium flooring to use. The box of flooring cost her $6.00 and it was enough to cover all of her shelves. They just cut each sq to fit the cabinets and she now has shelving that she can wipe down and it really dressed up the inside of her dark cabinets. Had never even thought about doing that. So there you go, a new idea that would save you money and so easy to use. Also, I am so excited that we are having FRESH fried okra tonight. My grocery store had beautiful baby fresh okra so am frying some along with potatoes, fresh cut tomatoes, fresh green beans and squash….a perfect veggie meal tonight. When there are so many wonderful veggies to munch on, we don’t even miss having meat. We are trying to eat “meatless meals” Monday through Thursday nights so we can splurge alittle more on the weekends. Since there are so many car shows around the area over the weekends, there always seems to be people selling grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, so we don’t feel so bad when we allow ourselves to eat those delicious grilled hamburgers over the weekend. This weekend, we have two outdoor concerts to attend, one Saturday night and one Sunday night with our Sunday School class, so I know we will be really chowing down at the outdoor dinners. Am already counting down until Saturday night…great weather, concert music in the park and a dinner eaten out side…..ah…..what a weekend!

This was such a wonderful day. Fixed lunch for some friends today and instead of eatting and rushing out the door to go back to committments or errands, we actually sat around until almost four just visiting and talking. We learned alot from each other. One of the ladies is facing the “empty nest” season of her life and is anxious about what she will do with herself. One friend is wondering what career she will be studying for as she is single and knows that she will need to be doing something that will provide not only a living, but doing something that she loves. Another is enjoying the “golden years” of her life and was telling us about the neighborhood that she has lived in and the neighbors that are eager to help in return for her teaching them English. Another has been having health problems and is “coming back to life” after some months of some real pain. We all had stories that we shared, as we sipped on tea and cupcakes. There was enough food to send home with the ones who wanted to take chicken salad for sandwiches for their dinner. It was just so refreshing to sit and learn from ladies ranging in age from the middle 30’s to the late 70’s….it reminded me of stories I have read in magazines, that women used to take the time to do just what we did today. We were encouraging to each other, sharing stories of our families and our lives that hopefully might inspire each of us in our attempt to live our lives, to reach out to others. Thank you sweet ladies for staying and sharing. The laughter and the fellowship were refreshing! One of the ladies actually brought me vegetables from her garden. Another brought me a wooden spoon that her husband had made. Beautiful gifts, given from the heart…I think we all learned today that these are the times that grow us, not only in listening to friends, but makes us want to do this again.; very very soon……..This was not an afternoon in the South, it was in our home in California! They might not have Sister Schubert rolls here, but we did just fine without them today.