Because I'd been so good on my diet for the last three days, when 13yo Thing1 suggested getting dessert for tonight's dinner while we were at the grocery store, I reluctantly went along with it. And by reluctantly, I mean it took me 20 seconds to decide we should head to the frozen dessert section rather than the bakery.
We both decided we should have Sweet Cream ice cream from a local Vermont dairy, but then the perennial problem of what to have with it kept us staring at the freezer case for a good ten minutes. Frozen blueberry pie was out – only summer blueberries could make a decent pie. Then we spied an apple crumb pie and went, “Yummm” in unison.
I was thinking about that pie all through making and eating our semi-healthy dinner, so when the first bite of crust and overly-sugared apples failed to help me achieve nirvana, I was sorely disappointed. The boys were heartily making apple pie soup with their ice cream, and the Big Guy was savoring his first few bites.
“The crust is no good,” I said, thinking of the dozen different recipes I had experimented with during apple harvest season (we have apple pie or apple crisp almost every night when our trees are producing). I got a few grunts in agreement, but no one was willing to surrender his pie. I took a few more bites and decided apple pie soup was the only way to really enjoy this tart whose defining characteristic was an overabundance of sugar and caramel 'seasoning'.
I used to think that, as a person who lived to travel and try new things, I had a reasonably adventurous appetite. Now, as a recovering nomad steeped in local color, I know I have completely spoiled it for anything but fresh picked and home grown. It's somehow turned something as humble as apple pie into something sacred.