Valerie's Kitchen Grade: D -

You know that little folk song that says,

Can she make a cherry pie,

Billy Boy, Billy Boy?

Can she make a cherry pie, Charming Billy?

She can make a cherry pie,

Quick as a cat can wink an eye,

She's a young thing

And cannot leave her mother.

Well, if my eligibility had been based on my pie making skills, I don't think I'd be married.

Tonight we are having some friends over to eat dinner with us and play some games. My friend always makes wonderful desserts when we get together, so this time I thought I'd make a pie.

Now, I've never claimed to be a pie expert. In fact, the first Thanksgiving that Dennis and I were married I wanted to make a pie to take to his parents' place and ended up throwing out a few crusts because they got so tough as I rolled and rolled, re-rolled and re-rolled. It became like glue. Several hours of frustration later I had an ugly apple pie to take with us.

Fast forward six years. There have been a couple of improvements. I no longer have to throw away pie dough. But my pies are never pretty.

Today I was making a peach pie. I took the frozen peaces from the freezer and mixed up the pie crust. Squeaky stood on the chair beside me, hanging on my every word and asking questions. When I got the bottom crust all rolled out I realized I hadn't thawed the peaches yet. So I threw them in a pot and started boiling that brick of peaches down.

I rolled out the top crust while I was waiting.

Then I realized that I had way too much juice in that pot. So I stuck a strainer on top of a bowl and started pouring the juice out of the pot. Suddenly the bowl slipped and everything went everywhere, all over the top crust that was rolled out on the counter. It ended up slipping and leaking about four more times until I told Squeaky that the lesson was over and tried frantically to salvage my pie.

Squeaky said, "Mommy, you're not very good at that."

I wrote, "OOPS" on top of the pie before baking it.