THAT PIE and RIBBON...

"Learn to light a candle...be the light that lets others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance..." -Roy T. Bennett. (The Light in the Heart)

On Saturday, NOV 21, 1936 my mother and father married, in Victoria, B.C. She sewed her wedding dress from cream satin, used a remnant of tulle for the veil and held a bouquet of white carnations, wrapped in frail cream ribbon. My father wore his best suit and carried a hat. March 26, 1968 my father died, and twenty years later, to the day, March 26,1988, my mother passed away. I inherited her butter stained cookbooks, pie pans and The Ribbon from her bouquet....

In the 32 years they were married , my mother made a lot of pies. My father's  favourite was "That Pie", as he called it. Mincemeat and apple. Spicy, tangy raisin and rum, with thickened cream at the ready. Mince pies first appeared in a 1390 cookbook "The Forme of Cury" , labelled "Tartes of Flesshe". Ingredients used at this time: boiled pork, cheese, lard, wine, figs, raisins, pine kernels honey and spices.

By 1845 ox tongue and other meats were stuffed into crusts of lard, to be paraded out, during the holidays.  It was in Victorian times there was a choice: you could either make a pie mostly of meat, or just with apples, lemons, suet, currants, spices and sugar. That's the one my mother used to make at Christmas and Easter. I just happened to have a large jar of mincemeat ( no suet),that has been staring at me, ever since Christmas. So, here is my mother's Apple/Mincemeat pie...

BEST MARGARINE PASTRY   for 2 crust pie

 1/3 cup cold cold cold water, ½ pound margarine ( 1 cup),2 cups flour

 Cut in margarine into flour, till crumbly. Add water little by little. May need a bit more, to make it all come together. Makes enough for two pie shells. Roll into two velvety balls of dough, wrap in Cling free, and chill for at least an hour. (Makes buttery and flaky pastry.)

         Cut up as many apples as you wish, either Granny Smith, or whatever you have on hand. I go by sight, rather than amount. When I get tired of cutting up apples, then I'm done! Drizzle with lemon juice or lime juice to keep from browning. Open that jar of mincemeat to have ready!                

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line pie pan with rolled out pastry, score the pastry,  and blind bake for about 12 minutes to give the pie a head start. Keep an eye on it, as every oven is different. Once that's done, lower to 350, remove the pie pan from oven. It's time to fill it up! 

                                

Plop any amount of apples you have cut and peeled and sliced thinly, mixed with a 1/2 jar of mincemeat ( or the entire jar, if you wish to make a fat pie).The apples help the pie to be less rich.

Roll out other chilled ball of pastry, and cover over mincemeat filling. I took leftover pieces of pastry and rolled them out to slice into strips to twizzle over top. Brush with milk and sugar before popping into oven.

"You're meant to live a life full of passion, purpose, magic and miracles..." -Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)   

Place a piece of foil over top, to stop extra browning. When the is bubbling away, remove foil, and watch the filling burp its way out of the pastry. It baked about 35 minutes, then I added ten minutes, give or take, till it was brown and blurping juice from the edges.

                                           

My mother served this both at Easter and Christmas, warm from the oven, sometimes with custard, or with plain whipping cream...

And the net ribbon from her bouquet? I created a vintage wall quilt, which I add to as time goes by, complete with laces, beading, vintage jewelry, and The Ribbon,  (which is now 90 years old), wonderfully draped across it all. And I remember them...

 Photographs 2026: "We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won't need to tell anybody that it does.  Lighthouses don't fire cannons to call attention to their shining. They just shine..." -Dwight L.Moody

DEAR MARCH...

DEAR MARCH by Emily Dickinson

Come in.  How glad I am.  I hoped for you before. Put down your Hat.

You must have walked. How out of Breath you are.

Oh, March, how are you, and the Rest. Did you leave Nature well?

Oh March, come right upstairs with me. I have so much to tell.

I got your letter. And the Birds. The Maples never knew you were coming. I declare, how red their faces  grew.

And all those Hills you left for me to Hue. There was no purple suitable. You took it all with you.

Who knocks? That April. Lock the door. I will not be pursued. He stayed away a year to call.

When I am occupied. But trifles look so trivial, as soon as you have come.

That blame is just as dear as Praise. And Praise as mere as Blame.

Photographs 2026

 DEAR MARCH  by Emily E. Dickinson, is in the public domain. 

MERCURIAL...

A house. Forsaken, at the edge of an overgrown path. An ocean at its doorstep. A lost field of dry grass.  A slumbering mercurial night. Wind washed, in the rain. The rain, rain, rain…

 Forest tendrils dripped and dragged forlorn roots. Muddy steps, torn and smothered.  Waiting alone beside an iron gate, exposed.  It swung like a child’s swing, on rusted hinges.

Effortless footfalls from long ago. Perhaps hundreds of 

them. Over those broken stairs that led to even more broken 

doors.  In the rain. That sweet, endless rain. 

                     

Green moss, resembling old man hairpieces, slid down its 

broken shingles. Cracked drainpipes rattled like rocky waterfalls. 

Hawks, enviable raptors of the forest, sat in damp feathers, 

on the roof peaks, calling to each other.  Dawn was about to 

break. Their amber eyes scanning. The hunt was about to begin.

A house, cold now, in the last vestiges of winter, longed for 

warmth. Fields parched and barren stretched beyond its border. 

                             

Muffled rooms, framed by broken glass windows. A great 

silence, except for 

the froth and bubble of wet drapes flapping in their wake. 

A neglected stone fireplace emitted its final embers before ceasing to function.  Someone had been there. Someone, in the murky hours. Someone passing by.

Ashes covered the broken hearth.  The house breathed 

heavily. It remembered. Woken at last by starlight in the old 

fire. It remembered what it was like before winter’s frigid goodbye.

                                    

Someone had lit the fire. Alone in the cold. Then wrapped in the old drapes, had sat before its low flames. Smoke drifted through the vacant rooms.

  

A house, neither grand or new, sat peacefully in the silvery quiet of the morning.  Once, long ago, mortal souls walked and lived in this place. 

Time pondered. In the rain. Waiting for Someone. 

The rain gurgled, then dwindled, drenching the house while it waited. In the rain.

Photographs 2026