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Pie Vanity

by Emily Flake

Image of long haired lady in red oven mitts holding a handsome, steaming latticed pie: "I am vain about two things: My hair (thick, healthy) and my ability to bake a pie. I can't exactly take credit for my hair... This lattice crust, though!"
She stands in a green hoodie before an award-winning pie, there is a blue ribbon on a card that reads "Panch Phoran Custard": "I have opinions on the best fats (a butter-Crisco combo) and methods (mix of ice water and vodka) for crust-making. I have twice won awards at pie-making contests. And I like to think that being friends with the judges only helped a little! (The secret to custard is to pull it when it jiggles like a baby's thigh meat.)'
Two sisters at the red gingham-clad table having Cheerios or equiv.: (This is a skill I acquired in adulthood. I wasn't raised in a cooking household.) Arrows point to: "Cereal for dinner with my sister" and "My glorious hair ruined by terrible haircut"
"I don't have much in the way of beloved family recipes or long-standing food traditions." The author pictured with her dad, each holding a plastic shopping bag. He's speaking to her: "What, you're not gonna count our secret junk runs to Wawa? Ingrate."
The beautiful pie on the red gingham cloth. "With the exception of this pie. My mother made something called Deep South Lemon Pie every year for Thanksgiving."
"I would, at this point, dismiss it as a cheater's pie - a crumb crust, a no-bake filling." Tasty looking pie, cut open, and ingredients listed around it: Graham crackers, egg whites, lemon juice, and sweetened condensed milk
"It's a pie much better suited to summer - light in texture, blindingly sweet." Author in glasses, eating leftover pie from a dish and saying "Why am I like this?" (The filling tends to melt into the crust, rendering leftovers a sticky mess that's both disgusting and perversely irresistible.)
The author putting an envelope in an old fashioned metal mailbox on a post near the street. Her mom sits in the car beside her, and there are trees in the background. "Despite not having a knack for making real pies, my mother tried to start a pie business. We stuck xeroxed flyers in all the neighbors' mailboxes."
The author, her mom and her sister wait glumly beside a pale green rotary telephone with a cord handset in the kitchen. "There were no takers."
"You wouldn't like me if you saw me around my mother." The author, hair in a bun now, arms tight and angry against her body, with red anger lines coming out all around her. "Don't TOUCH me!!" she is yelling.
"In the course of building myself as an adult, I had to clear a lot of land in my mind and heart.... I was not gentle." The author, still wide-eyed and furious, holding a machete and getting ready to hack at some thick vines in front of her.
My facility with a pie is just one small part of my adult identity, but I guard that identity with a zeal that is arguably doing more harm than good." Lot of red anger splashes on our author, now holding the machete between her teeth.
"As I write this I remember that my mother used to call me Pie Plate as a term of endearment." The author, a little calmer now, though still holding the machete, catches sight of a stray vine that is wandering up to her. "Oh, SHIT."
"This gives me pause." The relatively calm author, in a ponytail, talking with her younger self. There's a slice of the lemon pie before each of them. Grown-up author: "She called us a lot of other things too, you know." Younger author: "Yeah, but we COULD just stop being a dick about it."
"Is this ruthlessness necessary?" The vine is reaching toward the author's heart!! She is so annoyed. "GODDAMMIT-" "What happens if I left this one live?"
Enraged author, now touched by the vine, teeth clenched and ready to whack! but on the other side is the author's better nature, she is holding her mom up, and from the mom's heart the vine is reaching between them. The gentler side says: "Please. PLEASE stop."
"Maybe this all-wrong, kind-of-gross cheater's pie is redeemable." The author apologizes to the pie. "(I'm sorry.)"
"I bet I can tweak the recipe. I bet I can make it better?" The author stands thoughtfully before a table on which there's a carton of eggs, a bowl, and a pie dish. "Maybe if I make a BISCOFF crust. Maybe a layer of curd?"