Problem is, once you start getting into baking, you become accustomed to your own tools. Because I don't settle for mediocre baked goods -- I use a digital scale to measure flour, people. And right now, I don't have access to my kitchen (it's still in a trailer in the driveway). This is all to say that to me, the idea of making pie crust without a rolling pin, pastry blender, food processor, or digital scale is ... well ... it's just not happening.
So for Christmas I ... I ... this is hard to admit.
I used store-bought crust.
Which I then filled with delicious Martha Stewart chocolate pecan filling. And when I had to use 4 oz of chocolate chips from my 12 oz bag, I made do.
The pie, by the way, was pretty good. But the crust about made me gag. Cardboard. I've heard that Whole Foods makes a good pie crust, but there ain't no Whole Foods out here. I have my choice between a crappy Food Lion and Wal-Mart. And, I hate to admit this, but I prefer the Wal-Mart. (I can't believe I'm already a Wal-Mart shopper. The south really does change you.)
Otherwise, my dinner was splendid. And while I know this will pain certain of my family members, I have to admit this: I've never really loooved mashed potatoes. They're, you know, fine. I guess. Just a vehicle for getting gravy into my gullet, really. But mashed SWEET potatoes? With hot milk and butter and salt and pepper and a few tablespoons of brown sugar and absolutely no effing marshmallows? Creamy, fluffy, delicious. I'm never going back.
And another thing. Please don't even try telling me that my dog isn't basically the prettiest dog ever. (And lately, shockingly, she's been a downright good girl. Probably because we keep shipping her off to live with strangers and then not returning for a week. I'm guessing she's afraid that next time, we won't come back to get her, which I suppose is a reasonable fear.)
Poor Kaya. She's the sweet one, but just not as photogenic. Always in the shadow of little sister. In other news, Roomie and I have decided that Atta Boy food is totally sexist. So we're going to make our own dog food, called Atta bitch.
In other random Christmas news, how rad are those vintage Season's Greetings glasses? I kind of love them. (Note, too, the hand-hewn, salvaged cypress bar top. Ahem.)
And guess who woke up to a actual show falling out of the sky and sticking to the ground the day after Christmas?
Of course, it was a mess of slush by noon. Whatever. I'm hoping for more snow, but mostly because folks here are so terrified of snow they're apt to shut down roads and businesses, so I could actually get a snow day. It'd be a nice change from Bend, where they run school buses across sheets of ice in blizzards, and where I worked for the newspaper. The actual apocalypse wouldn't get me out of work. In fact, the apocalypse would sell some damn papers. They'd probably call us all in on our days off to cover that shit.
