I had to work on Saturday morning, and that – right there – is a bad combination of words. SATURDAY is the only day I get to spend with my family, and the one day I try to never, ever WORK. And MORNING blows ass, regardless of the day of the week.
They wanted me to be there at 6 a.m., but I negotiated (whined my way into) an 8 a.m. start. Yeah, and it still sucked. I was struggling throughout, and chugging caffeinated beverages until my eyeballs were spinning in their sockets.
But I served my sentence, and the clock finally told me it was OK to go home. So, I popped in Disc 1 of the Graham Parker anthology, and went cruising up I-81, the devil’s parkway.
It was trafficky out there, but everything was moving. And around mile marker 183, I spotted a police car in my peripheral vision. I wasn’t going super-fast, but was certainly exceeding the speed limit. And as I went past him, he started moving off the median. Dammit!
I held out hope that he was going after some other poor bastard, but he slid in behind me, and flipped on his lights. My nipples were exploding with delight.
I pulled over, and he sat in his car for a long time. I guess he was running my plates, or whatever they do.
While I waited, I gathered my driver license, registration, and proof of insurance. I’d unbuckled my seatbelt, so I could lean over and reach the glove compartment, and as he finally made his way to my window I panicked. “He’s going to think I wasn’t strapped in!” I thought. This just kept getting better and better.
But he didn’t say anything about it, and was, in fact, fairly pleasant. You know, as cops go. He told me he’d clocked me going 72, and the speed limit – through the safety corridor (WTF?!) – is 55. He said he had the right to double the usual fine, but wasn’t going to do it. And he also supposedly wrote it up in such a way that it won’t add points to my record. Who the hell knows?
When the dust settled, I owed someone, somewhere $110. Not the largest traffic fine I’ve ever received (that record was achieved in Santa Clarita, CA), but it’s enough to boil my peanuts. I’d gotten up at the ass crack of dawn that day, worked 8 hours of overtime, and now I’ll get to forfeit a good portion of the day’s earnings – because I was driving 72 on an interstate highway. Wow! I’m a regular Mario Andretti.
And what’s this “safety corridor” bullshit? I think it’s just an excuse to drop the speed limit by 10 mph in random spots, and turn non-speeders into speeders. Grrr…
But the cop was decent; he didn’t talk down to me, or display even an ounce of prickatude. Yes, if I’m going to be given a speeding ticket, this is the kind of guy I want to do it. The raping was very gentle.
I refused to thank him, though. During past encounters such as this one, I was always nervous and rattled, and said “Thank you!” at the end. Then I felt like punching myself in the genitalia, all the way home. “Thank you?!” I’d shout to myself as I drove. “You’re a pathetic excuse for a man! Your testicles should be removed and catapulted into the ocean!!” Or something similar. But on Saturday I held strong, and allowed the cop to have the last word (“Drive safely!”). I was proud of myself.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was nice. We had no visitors, and a giant spread o’ food. Then Toney and I shared our first six-pack of Sierra Nevada Celebration of the season. Good god, is that a great beer! Every year, around this time, it becomes available again, and I can’t believe how fantastic it is. You forget, as the months go by…
And we had a bunch of pies, which is something I fully endorse. I’m a big fan of a bunch of pies. And I’d like to turn that into our Question of the Day. I’m sure we’ve done this one before, but it’s been a long time. In the comments section, please tell us your favorite kind of pie, and your least favorite. And if you’d care to elaborate on the reasons, that would be cool, too.
My fave: blueberry. But it has to be cold, straight out of the fridge. I don’t know why I like it so much, in the very specific cold condition, but I do. Whipped cream is acceptable, but not necessary. My least favorite: pecan. Blecch. It’s like a bowl of sugar jelly, and almost causes the roof of my mouth to split open. NOT a good pie.
What about you? Make your case, in both categories, below.
And finally… If you’re going to allow yourself to get whipped into a shopping frenzy today, please don’t forget to pass through one of our Amazon links, before making your purchases. It costs you nothing extra, but I’ll receive a small percentage of whatever you spend. It’ll help defray the cost of the fines I rack up on our country’s highways, driving like a maniac, singing at the top of my lungs, and eating sandwiches.
HERE’S a good link for you to use. Click through and go nuts! In fact, have a few drinks before you do it; it adds to the enjoyment.
Have a great day, my friends!
I’ll see you again tomorrow.
First?
So sad that there’s no Eninen holiday horror news, but glad that you didn’t have to live through something like that this weekend.
For a pie to be good it must have a great crust.
Based on 60 years of observation, I suspect that it’s genetically impossible for a man to make nice, flaky crust. One of my wives was a baker, and she tried to teach me how to make a pie. I’d get about 2 seconds into preparing the dough (so it seemed) and she’d say, “Nope, you’ve been handling it too long.”
The pie gene is quite clearly recessive and is on the X chromosome right next to the blow job gene, or some other female related inherited trait. It could be the ChapStick gene.
My fave pies:
Cherry (with vanilla ice cream)
Apple (wvic)
Boysenberry or Marionberry (wvic)
Coconut Cream
Banana Cream
Pumpkin (with whipped cream)
.
Pies I shun:
Blueberry
Pecan
Sweet Potato
.
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Come to think about it, I once dated somebody who had neither the pie crust gene nor the blow job gene. I don’t know whether she had the ChapStick gene, because I stopped checking after I found the first two missing.
John
Have you tried the sweet potato pie at Ezell’s? It’s one of the best I have had anywhere. That included the deep south, where they make this type of pie almost everywhere. Ezell’s sweet potato pie might just change your mind….
Apple, sour cherry and coconut cream are the pinnacle of pleasure for me.
Pumpkin, sweet potato and mincemeat make me want to vomit.
Had an interesting TG here. Had Italians who had never seen stuffing or cranberry sauce and were very suspicious of both items. After I had to explain to them what was in them and how they’re mad (!) they proceeded to inhale 48 oz of cranberry and 12 cups of stuffing. Gone – as in ‘no leftovers’. Guess they liked them?
Top five! Our family always has Vinegar cobbler for Thanksgiving. It sounds absolutely awful but it is great. It is an old depression era recipe when fruit was scarce. My grandmother passed it down and we love it. It tastes like it has tart fruit in it.
Ooh, I am cautiously intrigued
Me, too. Care to go into a little more detail?
It kind of tastes like tart apple pie. Put vanilla ice cream on it and its fantastic!
Recipe, PLEASE!
Interesting. I’d like to know more. RECIPE PLEASE!
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1737,145172-251198,00.html.
Here you go!
rhubarb followed the always good strawberry rhubarb then a dutch apple
I’m on a mission to find a strawberry rhubarb pie to try. My mom keeps things simple, like strawberry, apple, or pecan. Rhubarb is not a southern thing, I guess.
It’s definitely a northern thing. Rhubarb is very tart, but the pie has enough sugar in it to balance it out. You usually can only get this pie in the late spring and early summer.
I was HOPING someone would mention loving rhubarb pie! We grew it in out garden growing up and I ate the stalks straight out of the dirt.
Yum!
Jeff-
I bought the shower transfer bench using your amazon link. Of all of the links I use when I purchase from there, I thought you would appreciate the irony of a bathtub transfer bench.
It’s for my Mom. Send Karma.
Favorite: Apple Caramel Walnut
Least Favorite: Pumpkin
Why would anyone eat pumpkin? Yuck. Sure, make jack-o-lanterns etc but eat that stuff? Bleugh.
my favorite pies:
ALL OF THEM BECAUSE I’M A FAT FUCK!!!
but i really love blueberry, but HOT.
I also LOVELOVELOVE strawberry rhubarb pie. but we don’t get that too often in NYC. I made it once or twice, but the rhubarb was in season and the strawberries weren’t so it wasn’t that great.
When I was growing up my mom would make mincemeat pie… and offal pie.
offal pie is the guts of a roasting bird (turkey or goose or whatever)… it’s good (if you’re a real man and can eat liver and heart and whatsits)
this year my woman’s dad had caught 2 pheasants. we put them in the deep fryer. deep fried liver and pheasant neck is sooooooo delicious!
I love pheasant. Neve rhad them deep fried but if I get the chance, I’m going to try that.
I love blueberry, cherry and pumpkin pie.
And pizza pie.
And chicken pot pie! Anything with a crust.
I don’t care for mincemeat or sweet potato pie. In fact, i don’t like sweet potatoes at all. I love the smell of them but the taste just hits me wrong in my gag refelx.
The Mrs. makes some mighty good chicken pies. After Thanksgiving, she also makes some turkey pie, which is about the only way I’ll eat turkey!
Pizza pie…good call!!
I always wondered about polite cop vs dickhead cop. Some of them are so wound up and seem like they take it personally. Ya figure there’s about a 100% of coronary in the forecast.
Peach, dammit!
OH YEAH! The peach season is so short I forget about peach pie in November.
And REAL Key Lime! (not that flourescent green stuff – it should be pale green!)
Madz if you ever find yourself near Sanibel Island in Florida you HAVE to go to the Bubble Room restaurant on Captiva. They don’t show it on their website for some reason, but they have the absolute best key lime pie ever created. And the rest of the food and desserts are amazing too.
Thanks for the tip! I’ve heard great things about Sanibel Island.
I concurr on the Bubble Room recommendation (only for dessert though).
The last time I got pulled over and actually received a ticket, I didn’t take any crapola from the copper either. I asked him if there was a bumper sticker on the back of my truck that read ‘kick me’. He didn’t think that was very funny.
As for pies: I guess I like any well-made pie (i.e., baked with a well-made crust). I like the berry pies, the tree-fruit pies, the rhubarb pies, the pumpkin and the sweet potato pies, the pecan and the chess pies, etc. I’ve even had some good shoo-fly pie. Hell, what’s not to like?
I’m not much of a cake-eater, however
Me neither. Cookies are my all time favorite, then pie then cake…
I love pumpkin pie, but it must have layers and layers of whipped cream on it. If there is no whipped cream then I ain’t eatin’ it.
I also dig lemon meringue pies and apple. Beyond that, I’m not sold entirely. However, anything that has “cream” in it (banana cream, chocolate cream) is vile and must not be consumed. In fact, anything at all with bananas in it must not be consumed. Blech!
Thank you. I thought I was the only banana-hater on the planet.
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Nope, not the only one. I would rather eat spackle than a banana. I even hate the smell of them. They are vile.
I’m part of the banana hater’s club too. Ugh. My boyfriend loves peanutbutter and banana sandwiches, which makes me grimace uncontrollably .
Some people seem to think that there aren’t any rules. Just throw any old thing in a pie shell and there you go. Fucking pea salad and things like that. People are ruining our country with their liberal pie making, for fucksakes.
I know we’re all supposed to like apple pie. But it’s not the best. Cherry pie is the best. Served warm with a dollop of mayonnaise on the side. Not really. See, you can’t just do whatever you want.
You’re right about the seat belt thing. Some years back when I lived in Vegas, I pushed a yellowpinkishredish light and got pulled over. From the driver’s seat to the glove box is a bit of a reach in a ’79 F-150 so I undid the belt. Wrong thing to do I guess. I wanted to be ready with the paper work just like you. When he handed me the ticket to sign and I saw the “No Seat Belt’ wack..I objected. He said sign it or we can do this a different way. For a moment I thought “a different way” involved me kicking the ever loving shit out of him. But…I’d just got off work…had just a bit earlier smoked the peace pipe with the rest of the world without this asshole in it. “Whatever dude…” was my response insted of, “Thank you…….Fuckhead”.
Texas has enough traffic laws that they can give any one a ticket any time for any thing.
Do you have a license plate frame? That’s probable cause for obstructing your plate.
Did you set the parking brake when you were pulled over? If not, that’s an offense too.
The list goes on, and on, and on.
Apple. The rest of you are commies.
I’m a Duch Apple sympathizer.
A British Driving License* is a thing of wonder. It’s a large piece of paper folded small enough for a wallet, with no picture of the driver, printed on a 1960s daisywheel printer, will all sorts of classifications of vehicles and weights and whether you’re allowed to drive them etc.
I’ve been pulled over twice in rental cars when I’ve had my British License with me, so I’ve handed that to the Police, and used my best Hugh Grant accent. Both times they’ve clearly thought “fuck it, I’m not processing the paperwork for this thing” and told me to slow down and enjoy the rest of my vacation 🙂
*since my British License was issued they’ve updated to modern photo ID type cards, but my big o’ piece of paper is valid until 2042, when I’ll be 70 and need a medical before my British License is renewed.
I would have thought it would be called a Driving Licence. But what do I know.
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I’m a Dutch Apple guy. Some chedder melted on a slice has been known to make me stare off for three hours. I’ve been tempted to try some melted Swiss but I don’t want to start a border war. I like the idea of a “bunch of pies”. I think I”ll head over to the store and stand in front off all the pies until I decide my assortment. Or until I’m asked to leave. Whichever happens first.
I too love cheddar melted onto my apple pie, but it makes members of my family want to vomit. I don’t see why, as when one has a fruit platter traditionally there are cheese slices accompanying it.
My father grew up in Frankfurt Germany and he said that until he came back to the US he thought everyone put cheddar on their pie, as is the custom there. Although, I’ve never been myself, so don’t know if it is truly a German custom, or just something my grandparents started him on.
Anyone else who’s in the SE corner of PA could do a lot worse than drive over to http://www.linvilla.com/ for pies. I have 6 of their pies in my freezer right now, they are fantastic, and they’re making me fat 🙂
Love me some peach pie. Followed by apple pie…my mother’s recipe. Tart and juicy…like me! Ha.
My least fave would have to be pumpkin. Ugh. Can’t do it. Even if Magic Mike is spraying the whipped cream.
Favorite: Pumpkin, cold with no whipped cream
Hate: Cherry, anything with cherries I hate.
Well my birthday was on Saturday and went out bowling and than to this bar where they give you a massive fish bowl drink for free if you show them ID that it’s your birthday. Needless to say I don’t remember anything after that point and had a massive hangover yesterday. That was my weekend.
What you do is you get you a graham cracker pie shell and you fill that thing up with ranch dressing.
Favorite Pies: Pecan, Lemon meringue, & coconut cream
Hate: all fruit pies except Apple, not that I have actually ate any of them they just give me the heaves looking at them
Pie Favorites (in no particular order):
-Lemon Meringue
-Peanut Butter
-Butterscotch
-Grape
-Pumpkin (especially Frisch’s)
Is cheesecake pie? It’s round, so it seems like it should qualify!
My turkey day ends tomorrow. Today spending time in historic twinsburg!
“Twinsburg”. Sounds like a great title for a porn flick.
I got a sweet picture of the mail pouch tobacco barn!
My fingers just went numb and I can’t type a resposce to that but it sounds like you’re realling living it up there.
I’m admittedly a bit of a hick, but my favorite pies are all custard based. Chess or Buttermilk (I don’t care which), coconut chess, chocolate chess, any of them will do.
When it comes to fruit desserts, I prefer cobblers to pies, and then like blackberry the best with vanilla bean Bryers Ice Cream.
Oh yeah, I’m also a bit of a fatty, too.
I make this pie that I call apple cobbler dumpling pie in which I blend the best of all 3. I wrap some of the apple slices up in pie crust like you do for apple dumplings, and I put my cobbler streusel in it with the apple slices and mini dumplings, and I bake the whole thing in a double crust. I also bake it in a 13 x 9 pan just so nobody will get hurt trying to get to a piece of it. My favorite for the holidays, though, is German chocolate pie.
A pie I will not eat (ever again) is gooseberry pie. It looks like it’s made of green grapes, for one, but when you bite into the gooseberry fruit, it is extremely sour, and it’s kinda like okra–it has this hairiness to it. Well, okra is furry. This is more like fibers. Positively nasty. Ew. Just. Ew.
I havn’t had a gooseberry in ages. There was a bush of those on my grandparents old farm and those things where great to pick off and eat.
Yeah, I’m out of sync today.
I make this pie that I call apple cobbler dumpling pie in which I blend the best of all 3. I wrap some of the apple slices up in pie crust like you do for apple dumplings, and I put my cobbler streusel in it with the apple slices and mini dumplings, and I bake the whole thing in a double crust. I also bake it in a 13 x 9 pan just so nobody will get hurt trying to get to a piece of it. My favorite for the holidays, though, is German chocolate pie.
A pie I will not eat (ever again) is gooseberry pie. It looks like it’s made of green grapes, for one, but when you bite into the gooseberry fruit, it is extremely sour, and it’s kinda like okra–it has this hairiness to it. Well, okra is furry. This is more like fibers. Positively nasty. Ew. Just. Ew.
Favorite: Pecan and Dutch Apple
Least Favorite: Any berry pie I am allergic and I don’t like the taste
I like most pies. Apple, lemon, blueberry and cherry probably the top choices.
Safety Zone aka Revenue Generation Zone. Hit you with a “goodwill” ticket just so you pay it becuase they know if you decide to challenge them in court, the fact you where tooling along at 72 in a 55 would come up and you’d be facing points and an increased fine, so hit you with something that only takes money out of your pocket and they are happy.
Favorite: pecan
Least favorite: pumpkin (baby’s diaper delight)
I just got back from the store. Bought a Dutch Apple pie, some Swiss cheese and punched a Polish guy in the face when I was leaving.
Favorite: Thigh Pie
Least Favorite: Not sure if I’ve ever had a pie I didn’t like.
Favorite Pie: Apple Walnut
Do not recall eating a slice of pie and saying to myself “I do not like that pie”.
Knucklehead’s sour cherry pie sounds awesome. Of pie-like things I’ve actually had, I’ll go with a lemon tart. I also like mincemeat, pumpkin and savory meat pies. Banana cream is probably second-nastiest. Top dishonors go to pecan: a co-worker used to bring a slice to work most days, and it smelled like a home perm kit. Vile.
My mom used to make a thing she called “black pie”, which I loved as a kid, and to this day she refuses to divulge the recipe. It’s a one-crust pie with a filling of a sweet, very dark gelatinous substance. There is a thin “crust” of light brown crumbly delicious on top (probably filling that dried out in the oven). I suspect this is a Texas thing, since that’s where her family comes from. Do any intrepid Reporters have a clue for me?
Pro tip: Next time you make whipped cream, add a tablespoon or two of bourbon. Pro tip two: “whipped cream” does not mean Redi-Wip or, heaven forfend, Cool Whip.
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See, I thought the subject was limited to dessert pies. Now savory pies – steak and ale, steak and onion, cheese and onion, steak and kidney (snake & pygmy)… those are pies.
molasses, maybe?
Blood pudding?
Breakfast favorite: strawberry rhubarb, with vanilla ice cream and coffee.
Lunch/dinner/supper favorite: Key lime, made with real key limes…and not that radioactive green crap mentioned earlier, neither…
…unless it’s peach season, then I can eat that three times a day, with a hunk of cheese.
Apple or peach are about the only pies I can eat on a regular basis. Pecan, about one slice a year. But the only really good pecan pie is baked and sold by morbidly obese black women at Baptist church bake sales. Anything with pumpkin in it isn’t fit for cattle feed in my opinion. And any kind of cream pie isn’t really pie, nor is pudding like or lemon meringue. If it don’t have real fruit or meat in it, it ain’t pie.
Favorites:
Peanut butter
Caramel Apple
My Step Mom’s Sweet Potato Pie (only version I like)
Can’t stand:
Pumpkin
Pecan
German Chocolate
Coconut Cream
-Skippy out
Favorite pie: Cherry. Preferably cold, but room temperature will do. I think all pies are better cold. Every time my mother is reminded of my affinity for cold pie, I think she’s convinced she raised a heathen.
Least favorite pie: It’s a toss up between custard and banana cream. The texture of custard makes me gag, so it doesn’t even matter what it tastes like. I just can’t eat it. And banana cream I’ve never actually tried, but because I hate everything about bananas, I hate the pie on principle.
On a related note, I made a perfect apple pie for Thanksgiving. It was so good it was like art. It’s wonderful when an hour and a half of babysitting a pie that won’t finish baking pays off.
Pecan is my fave and my specialty. Topped with real whipped cream, it is nothing short of sublime; a close second is apple, and like you and your blueberry, Jeff, it has to be straight outta the fridge. I’m a fan of pie and it’s the one thing I love to bake and am confident I could win blue ribbons for mine. My crust is killer. People who use pre made crusts should be taken out and shot, post haste.
The one pie I can’t get behind is strawberry. I hate strawberries in every form. They’re hairy and look like they have blackheads. Straight up BLECH.
Oh, and I hate anything with meringue. What the hell is meringue? Just nasty.