“Pie”pourri

       Or, how new recipes come about.

     “Dad, did you put Italian Seasoning on the apple pie?”    

     “No, I don’t think so.”

     “Well, it looks like Italian Seasoning.”   Takes a closeup sniff of the pie.  “It smells like Italian Seasoning.”    Cuts a piece, puts it on a plate, takes a bite.  “It tastes like Italian Seasoning, too.”

      Well, it probably was Italian Seasoning on top of the apple pie.  I took a second look and had to agree.

      The night before, as I slid the pie into the hot oven, I realized I had forgot to put cinnamon on top of the apples before I put on the top crust.  So, I went to the cabinet, pulled down the plastic jar, and sprinkled some on top of the pie crust, closed the oven door, placed the jar back in the cabinet. 

     After about 45 minutes, I pulled the pie out and let it cool for a while.  I placed it in a pie carrier and put on the hood of the pickup in the garage.  I never looked at the pie again until the preceding conversation took place.

      Yes indeed, I did put Italian Seasoning on top of the apple pie.  The cinnamon is right next to the Italian Seasoning in the cabinet.  As I was preoccupied with something else, a nearly constant state of mind these days, though I would be hard-pressed to tell you what I was mulling over, I never gave it a second thought. 

      My never-very-great sense of smell didn’t give me a clue.  It took a daughter to bring it to my senses, all both of them, smell and taste.  It didn’t taste great.  I wouldn’t recommend it for a future recipe.  However, I only got to eat one piece when I brought the leftovers home.  None of it went into the waste basket.

 

      One-oh-four on one-oh-four.  We singing boys (one of us is in his twenties) did a gig at a local assisted living facility for a 104-year-old lady who was born on January 4.  Her 104^th birthday fell on January 4, 2023.

     The activities director hired us to serenade Irene on this occasion.  We did some old chestnuts that she knew.  I don’t think she fully appreciated our effort, especially since she had to sit in her chair throughout the whole thirty minutes we sang.

      When she recognized one of the songs, she tried to sing along, but she was usually a phrase behind us.  Her impaired hearing made it difficult to converse with her, but we did our best.  So did she.

      At 104, she was born in 1919, the same year as our mother. Granny has been gone for twenty years.  It’s hard to imagine living that long.

     Irene was attended to by one of her cousins as well as the activities director.  I think she must have outlived her children.

 

     Tru-Vue.  We went to a “Memory Café” as our initiation to a program called “Dementia Together.”  As we were newbies, we didn’t know that attendees were invited to bring an antique.     

    After the show-and-tell from the audience, a young lady from a neighboring town’s museum took the microphone and proceeded to talk about some of the antiques she had brought from the museum’s collection.  She had toys, kitchen utensils, and tools.  The thing that stimulated my memory was what she called a stereoscope, I think.

      We had something similar when we were kids.  It had disks with a dual set of pictures.  It was a kind of 3-D, I think, for when you looked in the eye pieces, it was like you were right there, in the scene.  By pulling a little lever on the upper right side, you advanced the disk to the next scene.  I don’t really remember much about those pictures, except one of Bethlehem, I think, that had an old bearded guy in a turban and robe of many colors, mostly drab, standing in front of a house.  The remarkable thing to me was how small the house was.  Was it a toy house, I wondered.

      But that isn’t what I remembered about 3-D viewing.  What I remember was a Tru-Vue owned by a favorite Uncle and Aunt and discovered by a favorite cousin.  In later years, I began to realize that maybe what James and I viewed in that Tru-Vue might have been forbidden fruit.

      Of course, forbidden fruit is all the more sweeter, to use a double superlative.  What we were viewing was Sally Rand doing her bubble dance.  Her only apparel was high heeled shoes.  Truthfully, you wouldn’t know if she was wearing any clothing because she held a huge translucent bubble between her and the camera. 

      When the museum lady presenting at the Memory Café asked for comments or questions, I asked if anybody in the room remembered Sally Rand, the bubble dancer.  To my surprise, many of those present answered with a resounding “Yes!”

      The young lady was a bit nonplussed when I described the Tru-Vue I knew about.  The viewer she brought had some boring desert scene.  Another old gal surmised that the really interesting pictures were worn out long ago and no longer available.  Only the boring ones that nobody looked at remain for posterity.

     I don’t know if Sally Rand pictures were worn out or not.  I think the Tru-Vue disappeared somewhere along the line.  Too bad.

      I wouldn’t mind having another look.