DINNER OUT

It was said that the lady drinks 4 bottles of wine a day, and it has to be purchased every day, not ahead, because she would drink it, if it was there. I heard her say, after she took a sip, "It's good for the pain."

I hardly recognized her - just the faintest vestige of the once striking and vibrant woman, now blowsy, with watery eyes that spent the night studying me. It was hard to look at her as I was rambling on telling stories about piano playing- the childhood of lessons, concerts with 6 pianos playing together, and playing 27 pages of Haydn Sonatas every day as an adult. I tried to keep the kindest smile for her on my face to hide my distress.

In the end, she was taken home by her husband at 10 PM, all of us still waiting for our dinner orders to be taken at the restaurant, and he left with her, muttering about hunger, looking definitely downtrodden.

As for myself, a good lesson in paying attention to the inner voice that told me to stay home in the first place.

The Cake Lady Makes a Pie

A recent conversation about cakes and Pie brought forward a good pie making memory: The Ritz Cracker box used to have a recipe for Mock Apple Pie, using the crackers, lemon, sugar and water to achieve this result.

I have always favored odd recipes and was very excited to get going with it.  It was in the oven about 15 minutes when I re-read the recipe and discovered had forgotten to add the water.  No problem! I grabbed a bottle of gin and poured into the pie.  Gin Pie! Delicious! Why Not?