Apple Pie High

Every other year Mr. B&B's company has an Apple Pie contest. I always make a pie. I always lose. I keep coming back because: a) It is a ton of fun and b) Mr.B&B helps by doing the dishes and c) I like to think that in some small way I am contributing to Mr.B&B's career success.

Monday, November 17, was the date of the 2008 Apple Pie Contest. Sunday night I set out to make the pie. I couldn't find my favorite recipe. I scoured the internet, but nothing was quite right. I peeled and chopped apples. Back on the internet, I found an o.k. recipe and began mixing flour, salt, and butter to make the dough for the crust. Everything was going well until I had to slowly add the water. I am not always a patient person. I rushed it and ended up with a gooey, drippy, watery, pasty mess.

That mess and my resulting frustration could have been the end of this story if not for the encouragement of Mr. B&B.

In the end I used the filling instructions from the o.k. recipe, with my own flourishes of course, and found a different recipe for the crust. After assembly, using a knife, I poked holes in the center of the pie in the shape of an apple. How pretty my pie was going to be! Not so much. After baking, the pie only looked o.k. If I had used a few more apples in the filling it would have been fuller. If I had sealed it around the edges more carefully there would not be goopy filling ooze around the edges. The apple design was pretty, but would it make up for the slight sunkenness and the ooze?

Mr. B&B proudly submitted our pie on Monday Morning. Monday afternoon I got the call. The lady in accounting won first place. Someone else placed 2nd. Mr. B&B and I came in third out of 14 pies! Lucky for me and Mr. B&B, the contest was about taste only.

It may not have been the prettiest pie on the outside, but it was scrumptious on the inside. I think there is a lesson in that.