Momma's Pie.

We went to our friend J's house for "Momma's Pie" yesterday afternoon. This is our friend J whose little dog had to be put to sleep in mid-December, which resulted in J being rushed to the hospital with heart problems.

Her heart is just fine these days, and she seems to be back to her usual smiling, witty self, but she surely does miss her little Yorkie. I'm waiting for the day when she calls us up to tell us to walk up to her house and meet her new little puppy.

Anyway-- J's "Momma's Pie" is just that..... her mother's recipe for a chocolate-silk pie topped with homemade whipped cream. This is the third year that she's invited us for tea and Momma's Pie, and this year, she included our at-the-corner neighbor S. J also asked her son and daughter-in-law to join us so we could all meet. Apparently she had told her son all about going to the movies with S, and coming to our home for parties... so I think she wanted to assure her son that we really did all exist.

The pie was better this year than we remembered.... less sweet, more of a milk chocolate than a dark chocolate, and the whipped cream wasn't overly sweet either. Beautiful consistency on this pie, with everything homemade-- the crust, the chocolate custard, the cream. And no embellishments on the top, either-- not a chocolate curl or sprinkle in sight. J sticks to her momma's recipe and it's "plain-Jane all the way from the pie plate to the dessert plate."

As we enjoyed the tea and the chocolate pie, J said she had a confession to make-- the pie we were eating was her second attempt... after the first batch found its way to the garbage disposal. The story goes that J had her new MP-3 player (a Christmas gift) plugged into her ears while she was making the chocolate custard. She started singing with the music, dancing around the kitchen, and before she knew it, "those blasted eggs just went and curdled up in the custard and it looked like chocolate scrambled eggs."

Into the garbage disposal it all went, and J got into her car and went up to Kroger for another dozen eggs and more baking chocolate. When she got back, she said she made sure the MP-3 player was on the other side of the room till the pie was safely done. The thought of J dancing around in her kitchen is hard for me to imagine. J is a tall, stately, elegant woman "of a certain age" with gray hair, Victorian-straight posture, and a voice like Lauren Bacall (if Miss Bacall had been raised in Louisiana). Try as I might, I just can't picture J (or Lauren Bacall, for that matter) prancing around a kitchen like a go-go dancer.