A New Topic -– Pie

Alright I confess. This post has nothing whatever to do with the novel. As for the “more-or-less-connected-with-the-work-in-progress” standard that I promised for blog posts, this one is in the "less-connected" category. So much for my rules.

Not long ago my friend and fellow Hoosier Larry McCoy taught me how to bake a pie. That is, he mailed me an old Indiana recipe for apple pie including a great recipe for the crust. As every pie lover knows, the crust is the hardest part to get right. It must be difficult, because so few people get it right. I love to cook, but baking is outside my competence and as a long-time lover of pie I consider that a great pity.

As you’ve no doubt concluded by now if you’re still reading, I tried Larry’s recipe and it worked beautifully. It worked so well I made several more pies with other fillings.  

This started last fall, so I did a harvest pie with apple, walnuts and cranberries (Scrumptious!), a pumpkin pie, a pecan pie, several more with apple, and when spring came I made a blueberry pie and one of peach. Sometimes I had a little trouble keeping the crust together enough to get it into the pan unbroken, so I tried adding a tablespoon of ice-cold water. That seemed to work. Now I’m working on perfecting the fillings.

If I'm only reinventing the wheel here, old pie-baking hands, speak up. I’d be happy for your suggestions.

For a friend’s birthday recently I used a simple Eastern Shore recipe to make a cherry filling. The result looked so good that I took this picture, and my friend pronounced the pie good. I think he also said terrific and maybe something else. I believe he meant it because his e-mail ended this way:

“And more pie, always more pie...”

Thanks to him and thanks to Larry. 

Time Out

There’s only one best dog in the world, and every boy has it.  I’m not sure who said that first, but I heard it first from Jan. And as in most things, she’s right.

I’m that boy.

My dog and I have been practicing retrieves, a canvas dummy thrown or launched over land, and she’s getting better each day. But then, she’s the best dog in the world, isn’t she? A floatable one over water is great fun to watch, but she needs more confidence in water.

After weeks of 100+ temperatures and oppressive humidity, we had three days of relief. A fresh breeze at sunrise, fresh local peaches and coffee may well salvage what threatened to become a miserable summer vacation. Today the steam is back.

This vacation provided an opportunity to visit one of my favorite bookstores, The Book Bank. It’s known on-line as Crawford’s Nautical Books, and you can visit it at HTTP://www.crawfordsnautical.com/. Gary and Susan Crawford buy and sell what they call “watery books”—anything related to the sea, boats, ships, navigation, fishing, sailing, voyages, islands, or otherwise watery. They have a wonderful collection, and I could spend hours wandering through their rooms.

My other favorite is The Book Escape in Baltimore, which also offers new and used books. It’s co-owned and operated by Andrew Stonebarger,  a wonderfully patient man who allows customers to wander about as long as they like while he remains available at a respectful distance. He’s been hugely helpful in finding unusual books I needed for research.  

What a comfort to have a cozy book store nearby!

The Ospreys, Again

Sorry to keep going on about this, but it’s worth mentioning.

There was a dead osprey in our yard this afternoon. We’d been gone and when we returned it appeared that the osprey had been there for a while. It looked like an adult, big, with well developed talons and beak, tail feathers and wings. But its body mass was nearly gone.

How did this happen? There was no sign of trauma that I could see, though it was far too late for a necropsy. Trying to imagine the causes of death I thought of poison, a natural illness, a shooting, and little else. These birds are so powerful and self sufficient there seems little else that coud kill them.

The heat was too great to dig a hole for burial, so we bagged it (the bird) and carried it to a disposal area. Which osprey it was, whether it left young or a mate, I do not know. But I learned this. I now know why the parents of our young one in the water (see earlier post) could not save it. The talons are fearsome. Long, curved and sharp as needles. I certainly would not wish to be saved in a set of those. 

The Mysterious Mr. Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.

An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,

Exhales from out her golden rim,

And, softly dripping, drop by drop,

Upon the quiet mountain top,

Steals drowsily and musically

Into the universal valley.

A friend sent me this quotation the other day, and I loved the beautiful language and the soft imagery. It strikes me as a near-perfect description of the photograph that introduces my blog. These lines come from a poem called "The Sleeper." There are many possible readings of them. One is the approach of death. Another might be the transport of a moon-induced inspiration into the "universal" consciousness, a rather vague idea that represents to me the effort to create a novel. Or are those a single reading?

Dog Days

What’s a poor vizsla to do?

We’re outdoor dogs, and this mid-summer is a miserable time of year. Hunting season is over and won’t start until fall. We try to train, Pops and I. Once a week or so we work out on live birds with some other dogs, and I get to run off-leash. But mostly I sit in the shade because the trainers work on one dog at a time. The rest of the week Pop stays indoors because, he says, “It’s too hot to go out.”

Now I wouldn’t know this firsthand, but I’ve heard that my ancestors used to hunt all day long, even in heat like this. The Great Hungarian Plain, where we come from, gets as hot as this in summer—90 to 105. That’s what it is here now. We vizslas have thin, short-haired coats. I guess my ancestors simply got acclimatized to it. But I’m acclimatized to air-conditioning.  

So I put on weight, and my muscles get flabby. And sometimes I just go stir-crazy and run top speed around the house to burn up energy. When that happens Pops better get out of my way.

When fall comes I’ll have to work hard to get back in shape. Can’t wait! 

Formula Fun

Jan said, "Take the red car."

But it wouldn’t be up to me; I knew that. Then the voice behind me said, "Frank, take the red car." Now that was karma, and the word isn't big enough to describe what happened next. 

I would drive the red car—the color of Ferrari, the most famous name in racing. The sky was blue, the sun warm, and a winding track lay ahead. The formula cars were lined up ready to go, and we were going to do a dozen laps or so at racing speeds. 

What does this have to do with writing a novel? I’ll tell you. 

There’s no better way to refresh the old muse than going racing. It clears the mind, leaving it fresh and clean as a mountain stream. The concentration required to write is nothing at all compared to the concentration required to dive into a corner at 120 mph, brake hard, downshift, and come out fast and fully in control. When you get it right, it’s better than sex (almost).  Facing total destruction and defeating it several times per lap is a tonic that lasts for days. Weeks!

But eventually it wears off. Several years ago I stopped amateur racing and sold the turquoise Porsche 914-6 race car pictured on this page. People ask me, “Don’t you miss it?” Ah, if only they knew!

When the Internet brought an opportunity to buy a ride, it was more than an old Formula One fan could resist. I'd never driven an open-wheel single-seater. 
The venue was Summit Point, West Virginia. I know the old track well, but they put us on the Jefferson Circuit, a short and treacherous 1.1 miles that I hadn't driven in several years. 

So here's the story, in pictures: 

The cars, small, lightweight, and fast.

I get some reconnaissance laps with a professional.

Am I nuts?

Smile, dammit!

Climbing aboard looks easy when they do it.

Where are the pedals?

That's not my helmet; it's my head. 

The competition: half my age and half my weight.

A cushion behind makes a short guy taller. 

What's that thing for?

My game face.

Okay. I can do this!

Any questions?

Whooooeee!

First lap ends. Guess who's in front.

Bye-bye!

Lap two: my pursuers fall back.

Lap three: where are they?

Uh-oh!

Next lap: He's still there!

He's still there, and ahead is a back marker.

Free at last! I've lapped the back marker and my pursuers are stuck behind him.

A nasty corner: double apex, decreasing radius, off-camber, and downhill.  Many come to grief here.
And I complete another lap alone. 

Last lap: The radio tells me "Checkered flag!" 

 Climbing out. 

Still climbing out. 

Still climbing out. Why is this so hard?

Hey guys, I've got to sit down awhile. I'm soaked through. But if this were a race, I would have won.

So the moral is: Age and wile top youth and skill. The truth is that soon I would have had a fight because those guys were in my mirrors for the last two laps. Then they would see what wile is. 
Thanks to my wife, who took the pictures. 

Buckle Up and Hold On Tight

A surprise is coming. Think speed.