Pie and Pandora

Now that fall is here, it's time to turn the stove back on and start some baking. Over the summer if you ask me what's for dinner on any given day, it's probably a) sandwiches, b) pasta salad, or c) sandwiches and pasta salad. But now it's back to regular food and extra baking with ingredients such as cinnamon and nutmeg.

My friend Mary, and she really is my friend even though we've not officially met, recently posted about pie. I don't know why, but after I got my new laptop in August, I cannot comment on anyone's blog except my pastor's. That sounds oddly rigged, but I'm sure it's not. So I was dying to comment on Mary's about pie, but I just emailed her instead. This turned into three or four back-and-forth emails, all about PIE. And we still haven't exhausted that discussion. Then she posted again about pie, but it doesn't have a title so I can't link to it. Then I figured I better post about pie, so here I am.

We talked about our favorites, and it made me think about all these pies my mom would make: rhubarb, lemon meringue, strawberry (a slice of spring in pie form), my ultimate favorite--her Swiss apple (Mary wanted to know what Swiss apple is, and it's what other people call Dutch apple or French apple. But my mom was Swiss, so it's Swiss apple), and pumpkin--which is my dad's favorite but not mine. Something about the texture is weird to me. But my dad will eat it for breakfast.

I make a caramel apple upside down pie that my family seems to like, judging by the fact that it's never around for very long. I'll give you the recipe if you want.

In the midst of all these pie thoughts, I ran into my friend Toby at the library and we started talking about pandora. If you don't know what pandora is, it's a site where you can create your own radio stations, as many as you want. If they play a song you don't like, you can thumbs down it and they'll never play it again. When I first told my brother about it several years ago, his comment was "Finally. The Internet's starting to pull its weight," and ran off to create his Lyle Lovett station. Toby and I were comparing our stations, and here's what I've got (some I ran home and created after talking to her):

Choral Music

W.G. Snuffy Walden--acoustic guitar music

Carl Davis/Thomas Newman--guys who write soundtracks, such as "Cranford," "Pride & Prejudice," "Little Women," "Shawshank Redemption," etc. etc.

Wynton Marsalis--classical, you can also have a Wynton Marsalis jazz station, which I'll probably add

Harry Connick, Jr.

Judy Garland--holiday station; you can have a Judy Garland non-holiday station, too

Yo-Yo Ma

Travis Cottrell/Robin Mark--worship music

Keith Green/Larry Norman--old school Jesus music

Van Halen

Dave Grusin

Frank Sinatra

Chris Botti

Der Kommissar (80s)

Bruce Hornsby

Natalie McMaster (Irish)

Liz Story (piano)

I'm telling you, the best way to spend an afternoon is to turn one of your pandora stations on, get your pie ingredients out, and start baking.

Right now this is my personal favorite to bake to. I think it automatically infuses food and makes it taste better.



OK, so what's your favorite pie and pandora station?