"Like the study of science and art, accounts of historical events can be intrinsically fascinating. But they have a wider significance. I believe that people are better able to chart their life course and make life decisions when they know how others have dealt with pressures and dilemmas---historically, contemporaneously, and in works of art. And only equipped with such understanding can we participate knowledgeably in contemporary discussions (and decisions) about the culpability of various individuals and countries in the Second World War. Only with such understanding can we ponder the responsibilty of human beings everywhere to counter current efforts at genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to bring the perpetrators to justice."
"...we humans are the kinds of animals who learn chiefly by observing others---what they value, what they spurn, how they conduct themselves from day to day, and especially, what they do when they believe that no one is looking."
----Howard Gardner, from The Disciplined Mind, published in 1999

Friday, July 20, 2007

The Treachery of Images Redux; or, Let Me Call You Sweetheart




http://www.abcgallery.com/M/magritte/magritte26.html


Yesterday I made an apple pie, a great, gigantic pie. This pie was (and as the writer David Barry would word it), and I Am Not Making This Up, 6 inches high before I placed it into the oven. Just as the sandwich from that famous franchise with a name declaring the weight of its meat also comes with an asterisk to alert one that the frying of the patty will diminish the magnitude of its meat---- the pie did collapse somewhat during the baking, as the apples continued to soften, for I had only partially cooked the filling. All in all, still a pretty and a substantial pie, tagged with that Radiant-Baby-style heart for a steam vent.

As I stretched the top crust of the pie over the mound of apples (smelling of cardamom, smelling of clove and lemon and maple), Little Guy entered the kitchen. I've got this great, beaming grin on my face. I'm happy as I do so love when a pie crust works well: so well that it can stretch over a 6-inch tall mound of apples, and still keep hold to the bottom crust, and hold that seal all along the rim of the tin. I'm happy because this pastry is the other half of the batch I made from Almeda's recipe. I'm just happy because, well, it's apple pie, and I'm going to get some vanilla bean ice cream so that we can all scoop some to eat on top of it, warmed from the oven.

LG looks at the pie-almost-finished; he looks to me. My grin gets wider. I'm happy that he's caught me in the act. Won't he be so happy? What does he say?

I can't believe Devin Hester won over Ryan Howard for Breakthrough Athlete!

Sometimes a pie just is, well, a pie.

And even so, dear reader, I took the silver sliver of a paring knife, and tagged the pie, with that Radiant-Baby-style heart, right into the center of the crust, and slid it into the heat of the oven, so that we might dig into it, cracking the crust, and scoop up its tart-sweetness, and gild the lily, by adding more sweetness on top, and spoon up tart-cold-hot-sweetness all in one bite: I slid the pie into the oven to soften its heart.
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2 comments:

AfKaP said...

There are two genders so that there is a group of people to take pleasure in such things as the perfectly rolled and stretched, flaky pie crust. Others can take pleasure in juicy new pitchers and first basemen.

July 22, 2007 at 5:15 PM
neroli said...

:-)!
And sometimes one gender can do double-duty!

July 22, 2007 at 11:26 PM

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