Volleyball and Pie

I am not at a PTA meeting this morning. This is me, being light of heart.

There are also merits to taking the high road. The Child had a volleyball game last night and many of the parents are the same ones who were being ridiculous on the weekend. I am happy to report that everyone was absolutely lovely to each other, laughing and joking and cheering for our kids like we always do. Maybe even more than we usually do. It was terrific.

The game? They went in with an undefeated record. Not so much now. However, it bears noting that after being smashed in the first game they came back and won the 2nd game 25-9. The Child was responsible for about 6 of those points, including her first ever spike at the net. It was a little piff of a thing but it surprised the frak out of the opposing team. And Bad Coach. And the snotty Princess. And The Child. Tee.

The girls started out with a 6 point lead in the 3rd game and then it went back and forth. Sadly, they lost, but they made the other team work for it, with a final score of 27-25. Hardly a drubbing. And for the record, our girls, who are 13 and 14, are "playing up", which means they have been facing high school sophomores and juniors all season. They so rock.

The Child still hates Bad Coach, who is still a Bad Coach and an idiot. But she told me last night that she wants to play CYO in the spring, even if he's the coach. (I continue to work behind the scenes to see to it that we have a good coach in the spring. I didn't engender all this political clout in my years on PTA for nuthin'. I know people. I'm going to work that like a mule in a field).

Meanwhile, parents are begging me to reconsider sending The Child to DC. Some of the folks that were such jerks at the rummage sale are even asking the head guy to credit their take to The Child's account. How do I feel about that? I'm not sure. On one hand, if I can send her without doing anymore fundraising and without paying for it myself, that would be a good thing. On the other, I'm still not sure, given a whole lot of stuff, whether this is really the group of kids with whom I want her spending a week in DC. I'm going to think and pray on it and talk to The Principal and see where that takes me. It'll take a very large and bright shiny sign to change my mind. Not to mention, Hat and I are seriously thinking that taking Rosie up on her suggestion of a road trip, with The Child, to Sandpoint in May. That sounds delicious. Almost delicious as pie. But not mincemeat.

About Mincemeat

Way back in the day, when there wasn't refrigeration and like that there, folks came up with a groovy idea for dealing with leftover meat that had begun to turn They chopped it up super fine, mixed it with strong liquors, dried fruits and other masking agents, popped it in a pastry and said, "Yum". Then they all died of food poisoning. But somehow the idea lived on.

Down the culinary road a pace, someone figured out that instead of rancid meat they should use fruit, like apples and green tomatoes. That's the sort of thing you find in most prepared jars of mincemeat today. But recipes I found for making the stuff from scratch very often still include some meat and suet. Personally, anything that calls for suet is a non-starter for me. Eeeww.

Anypie, many years ago I was on staff in the Continuing Education office at my alma mater. My boss was a charming, elegant man of refined tastes. The sort of gentleman you could picture in a smoking jacket, having a snifter of brandy in the parlour while his equally elegant and refined wife played a little Chopin on the baby grand. One Christmas he hosted a dinner party in his equisitely appointed home for the entire staff. A long table was set with a crisp white cloth, English bone china and gleaming silver candlesticks. The meal, which he and his wife had prepared, was a sumptuous event with many courses. We started with Oysters Rockefeller and, I think, champagne (the school was by mandate a tea total sort of place but that did not apply to the lifestyles of many players off campus) and ended with pie.

Mincemeat pie. Very lovely looking pie, flakey and perfectly browned crust from which oozed luxurious mincemeat. 'Cept, it was traditional mincemeat. As in beef. As in beef with sugar and apples and raisins. You know what? You cannot douse beef with enough brandy to make someone forget that they are eating sugared meat.

I love sweet and savory combinations. But there are limits. Would you put hard sauce on a burrito? Whipped cream on turkey? No. Meat is not a dessert. There. I said it.

I must away. I shall leave you with this, a little sumpin sumpin found recently while reading about pie. It made me laugh.

From Epulario (The Italian Banquet), published in 1598. The English translation:

To Make Pie That the Birds May Be Alive In them and Flie Out When It Is Cut Up

Make the coffin of a great pie or pastry, in the bottome thereof make a hole as big as your fist, or bigger if you will, let the sides of the coffin bee somwhat higher then ordinary pies, which done put it full of flower and bake it, and being baked, open the hole in the bottome, and take out the flower. Then having a pie of the bigness of the hole in the bottome of the coffin aforesaid, you shal put it into the coffin, withall put into the said coffin round about the aforesaid pie as many small live birds as the empty coffin will hold, besides the pie aforesaid. And this is to be at such time as you send the pie to the table, and set before the guests: where uncovering or cutting up the lid of the great pie, all the birds will flie out, which is to delight and pleasure shew to the company. And because they shall not bee altogether mocked, you shall cut open the small pie, and in this sort you may make many others, the like you may do with a tart.