First, prepare a chocolate cookie pie crust, and set it aside
Assemble your ingredients:
1/4 oz unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 C sugar
6T water
6 eggs
dash salt
3/4 C fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 t grated lemon peel
2 oz semi-sweet chocolate
1 1/2 T butter
1 1/2 C whipping cream
Dissolve the gelatin and 3/4 C sugar in hot water in the top of a double boiler or in a microwave-safe bowl.
When ingredients are fully dissolved, wait for mixture to cool before continuing.
Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into the cooled gelatin mixture.
Add salt and lemon juice.
Simmer for five minutes, stirring repeatedly, until mixture becomes thick.
Add lemon peel, then chill. Take your time. No hurry, no worry.
Meanwhile, whip up the egg whites, adding 3/4C sugar, until the whites form peaks.
Whip the cream, too.
Fold the egg whites, the cream, and the gelatin mixture in together, and go back to chilling until it all reaches a nice level of firmness.
Melt the butter and semi-sweet chocolate.
Bring out the pie crust and start scooping the filling into it, alternating the filling with drizzled chocolate. Do this three times, ending with a lacy drizzled pattern over the top. If you run out of chocolate drizzle, just make some more.
* 3/4 cup Caribbean sugar
* pinch salt
* 1 C milk
* 1 envelope unflavored gelatin
* 2 eggs, separated
* 6 oz dark, rich chocolate
* 1/3 C Santiago rum - don’t waste your time with Havana Club or Bacardi. (Some travel and willingness to smuggle home the good stuff may be required.)
* 1 C whipping cream
* 1 t vanilla extract
* 1 shortbread-crumb pie shell, ready to go
Directions:
1. Combine 1/2 C of the sugar, salt, and milk (reserving 2 T for later).
2. In a small bowl, mix the remaining milk with the unflavored gelatin.
3. In yet another small bowl, beat the egg yolks until fluffy beyond your wildest dreams.
4. Heat and stir the milk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Let this cool to room temperature, and then blend in the eggs. (If the milk is too hot, you’ll poach the eggs. Take care.)
5. Stir and stir and stir. Heat the mixture until it thickens, and quickly — and with style and grace — add the gelatin and the wonderful dark pieces of chocolate.
6. Now for the best part: Chill. You know what I mean.
7. When the mixture is just starting to set, add the rum.
8. Chill for a bit longer. Stir and chill. Chill and stir. Don’t let time be a factor. Go by your sense of taste and texture.
9. Beat the egg whites until the form soft peaks then add the rest of the sugar.
10. Fold the egg whites into the rum-laced chocolate.
11. Whip up the cream and add the vanilla.
12. Whisper a blessing into your pie shell and patiently layer the chocolate and the cream, one after another.
13. Give it all one decisive swirl with your favorite spatula.
14. Think of me dancing in the Havana night, and enjoy your pie.
Last night, out on the driving range, well after dark, I go through 100 balls in only an hour, which I know is much too fast. I’m not spending enough time in the silent space between the swings, and I’m going too fast when I am swinging, so I know I need to adjust my sense of time and timing and slow it all right down.
As usual, I need to find a source for the defect, and so today I am passing the blame on to Wendy’s Chocolate-Chip Cookie Dough Frosty, a 480-calorie treat, and 25% of those calories are from fat. W00t! The “healthy alternatives” website suggests that I would have been wiser to go for the Mandarin Chicken Salad instead, but it’s just not the same kick, and standing around with a Mandarin Chicken Salad would not endear me to the local golf teens as much as the Chocolate-Chip Cookie Dough Frosty does.
“Wow,” says one bright-eyed local boy. “I just had one of those two hours ago, and I am still buzzing.”
My point exactly. If I’d gotten mine with chocolate ice cream in stead of vanilla, I would probably still be out there. Then again, I didn’t sleep well and I am out there again at 7:00 a.m., hitting balls and musing about the events of the past 9 or so hours.
Picture me on driving too fast on I-95, high on way too much sugar but happily reviewing the evening’s progress, remembering the voices of the two men next to me, softly sharing advice and stories, whistling low in appreciation as one or the other hits a truly spectacular shot.
I am happy. I cruising on the super-highway that can be seen from space, and I am listening to jazz and thinking about The Morning Guy who is out somewhere for his evening run, staying fit, keeping the boxes in his mind all nicely organized and never letting them touch each other, and then it happens: The radio inexplicably switches from jazz to Barry White, and I hear Barry moaning about how he cannot get enough of my love.
Suddenly, my mood goes from crest-of-the-wave to serious paper cut, and I feel like I just plunged my hand into a vat of organic lemon juice.
I want to swerve into the nearest bar and knock back some Jack Daniels Black to ward off the unexpected and unwelcome stab of loneliness. For just a split second, I even find myself missing my two ex-husbands Pretty Boy Boyd and Patrick-the-Liar, but that impulse blinks out of existence just as quickly as a firefly being eaten by a bat.
The next song, though, is equally devastating, and I am plotting the shortest route to Pepe’s Hideaway, when my cell phone jangles, and it is Sue Ten, stranded at a Starbucks with a folding bike and no interest in pedaling any further.
“I was just reaching out for a human connection,” she says.
Relieved to have a diversion, I say I understand fully, and continue south, well past my exit, slowing down to navigate a major speed trap, with at least a dozen blue lights flashing, and I pick her up in a matter of minutes.
On the way to her house, we debate the Pie Shop menu. I am not at all convinced that her version of Eggs Benedict Pie, with sliced potatoes instead of a crust, works for me. She argues for more variety in the menu. I’m holding my ground. I’m running a 24-Hour Pie Shop and Driving Range, not a cafe. And I like purity of definition. What’s she’s offering is a casserole. I will only serve pie, and metaphors.
So this message is for all of you who want more than what I have to offer: Get in your pick-up truck and just go next door to The Swing Barn. You can talk to Sue Ten, in Italian no less, and you can eat whatever you like. You can even have waffle fries covered with cheese-in-a-can. You can swing dance. You can weep in your beer. Remember, though, The Swing Barn is not open 24-hours a day, there’s no free internet, and there aren’t even any good books to read. Although some of the grafitti in the rest rooms — which, by the way, have signs saying “Them” and “Us” on the doors — is pretty interesting.
Now, if you want a pie for dessert, give us a call, and I’ll send someone over in a golf cart to deliver it to you. Please have exact change.
So, yes, I know it’s September and not July, but this song does have a great lyric in it: My arms are empty and the moon is full.
It’s a sad, sad song, and don’t you agree that they ought to put warning labels on those sad country songs? I was thinking I might find an antidote in some Magic Mushroom Chocolate Pie, but apparently the key ingredients are just a tad difficult to find.
And I know I will feel better once I’ve had an hour or two out on the driving range watching the full moon come up.
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