Just in Time!

Whoa ....... almost missed it. Here are the remains of the Dutch Apple Pie baked for Thanksgiving dinner. The Melrose apples were perfect and I still have most of them left! I'll have to come up with another apple dish or two over the weekend & then freeze the rest. Or how about making applesauce for a change?

In the background is my old favorite reference cookbook, the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook - 1976 Edition! "With hundreds of pictures, tested recipes, and practical advice, the new Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook tells everything you want to know about buying, proper care, preparation, and serving of foods of all kinds." ---- so says the book jacket. The chapters on Game & Variety Meats are keepers. For all of you local food advocates, this is the ultimate resource in preparing foraged meals. For example, we find that "The opossum is a very fat animal with a peculiarly flavored meat. It is dressed much as one would dress a suckling pig." We are encouraged to "stuff the opossum with opossum stuffing". Yes, among recipes for sage stuffing, raisin stuffing, oyster stuffing, etc., we find a specific opossum stuffing recipe that includes "1 hard cooked egg chopped fine" & a "dash of Worchestershire sauce" as key ingredients. Did Michael Pollan mention this dilemma? ;~) Anyway, I use this cookbook for good basic recipes and to logic check new recipes .....

Now, what is that antique in the picture? It's a pie lifter ..... one side of the wire is "fixed" and the opposite side is loose. Hold the handle over the hot pie dish, hook the loose side over and around the rim, grab the opposite side of the rim with the fixed wire, lift the handle up slowly, and the wires close to grip the pie plate. Off you go with your hot pie, steaming from the oven. Hmmmm ...... seems easier to use a pair of pot holders.