Last week, my mom generously picked up two flats of strawberries for our family. I greatly appreciate her thoughtfulness in this regard as I often want to get seasonal berries and fruit, but by the time I realize I want them, the season has passed. Every year, she reminds me of due dates for strawberries, raspberries and blueberries and goes the extra mile in purchasing them for me.
And this year she even treated us to a pie!
Now we have a history with this particular farm’s delectable strawberry custard pie. Whenever we see this pie, “the incident” is dredged up out of family lore.
***
It was a bright and sunny early summer day when our family brought home multiple flats of strawberries after a day of exploring one of our local farms. Added to the pile of deliciousness was “the pie.” Piled high with strawberries atop a custard filling, it was almost too beautiful to eat…almost. Our children were just little then, and we had an idyllic day at the farm petting animals and playing in the playground and were nicely tired and ready to relax and eat pie.
On our arrival home, our dog Jake (Rottweiler) greeted us with the pure excitement of a dog who has been home for a few hours on their own. Our only Rottweiler whose tail was never docked (thankfully this practice is now outlawed in our province), Jake was by far our biggest dog with a lovely curled tail that beautifully hooked over the edge of the table into our plates when he decided to stand underneath the table waiting for crumbs to fall which was inevitable considering three small children. He was such a sweet dog in his unruly, pushy way due to our lack of consistent training; however, he did learn after eating our dinner one night right off the stove while we said goodby to a guest that food on the stove and counter was not his to touch; however, everything else was fair game.
Grabbing the pie, one of the smallest members of our household begged to be allowed to bring the pie into the house. With promises of “being careful”, we gave them permission to carry the pie while we unloaded the rest of the car.
I think you know where this is going.
Suddenly we heard a few bangs, a crash, and then crying.
We rushed to the stairs of our home to find our littlest one covered in strawberries, pie crust and custard with Jake happily eating pie off the stairs and said child. The child had slipped, and the pie had fallen out of their hands.
Great day for Jake, sad day for us. One of those moments you look back and feel intensely grateful that you asked how the child was before you lamented the loss of the pie. Those moments tend to reassure surprise us that our priorities are in the right place.
***
So it was with a spark of joy when my mom revealed that she had purchased a pie for us as a special treat.
But then she started to look a little sheepish…and showed us the pie.
Attempting to remove the pie from the car, the flimsy container had buckled, and the pie landed on the floor.
My young adult, who happened to be the same child of family lore, and I sadly looked at the remains of the pie.
But the frugality cheapness of the older generation determined our fate. Coming out of the house armed with a large spoon and the pie plate, she told us we were saving that pie. So my young adult was tasked the responsibility of skimming off the good bits of pie that had not touched the ground and leaving the carpet bits for disposal.
To their credit, my young adult did an excellent job, though did express some concern about the neighbors seeing them. I reassured them by telling a story about the neighbor I observed last year using a shop vac to vacuum the browning leaves off the bush in his immaculate garden. I informed the young adult that these were fastidious standards beyond attainment so might as well give the neighborhood some shock value.
Perhaps I set the bar too low when I observed them (several times) spoon one serving of car floor pie into the pie plate and another into their mouth.
Following the pie retrieval, we cleaned up the car and texted my husband who was running errands to pick up vanilla ice cream for a special treat.
My young adult and I agreed to keep the car floor portion of the story to ourselves for the evening due to my hubbie’s propensity to be a little hesitant over dramatic when it comes to unusual food situations (See chicken story).
The pie with the delicious ice cream was thoroughly enjoyed.
A few days later, my hubbie was filled in the rest of the story to which his reaction was entirely anticlimactic due to I think the meticulous retrieval by our young adult and the fact that the pie had been wonderfully delicious and already digested.
And now we have another pie story in our family lore.
Thanks, Mom!
* This blog post was written with the express permission of my mother who I am delighted to say I inherited my lack of shame from.
A Beautiful Thing
I was reading Courtney Carver’s Weekly Favorites newsletter which introduced me to the We Do Not Care Club for perimenopausal and menopausal women. I am now a member of the club. My personal favorite…”We do not care if we are using the flashlight on our phone to find our phone.”
#wedonotcareclub
And I’ll add…We do not care if the strawberry custard pie fell on the floor of the car, we paid a lot for it and money and strawberry pies do not grow on trees (science!). We are eating it anyway.
I don't think I have ever had a strawberry pie..it is now on my bucket list!
Love this….when I was a kid my family was driving to a potluck, and my mum had made a big crock pot of homemade beans. At one point, my dad had to hit the brakes hard and needless to say the lid flew off the crockpot and it tipped over, leaving half the beans on the car mat at my mother’s feet. I still remember her grabbing the big spoon she’d also brought and carefully putting as much as she could back into the pot…and we were all sworn to secrecy. As kids, we didn’t care anyway, as beans were not on the top of our favourite potluck foods. But I do remember the adults all complimented my mother on her delicious beans and the secret was never told…and no harm done!