BREAKFAST PIE 12/10/00

Subj: breakfast pie
Date: Sun Dec 10 23:26:17 EST 2000

It was grey and wet outside today, but it felt sunny from where I sat in the big chair in the living room. Kayla and Nikiah came by again for a pre-Christmas workshop. I would tell you what they made, but their main project is going to be a present, so I better hush.

I can tell you that we had a merry late morning and early afternoon, the girls working away at the coffee table, yours truly holding court in the big chair, and Elsa running back and forth to the kitchen to keep her guests well supplied with pretzels and orange juice.

To digress from crafting to breakfast - this morning, mine included a piece of Acme's pumpkin pie. I am persnickety about my pumpkin pie, but the Acme pie is generously spiced and the crust is short and dark. Wonderful.

I was first introduced to pie as a breakfast food by Mennonite friends of Papa's we visited when I was a young girl. My eyes must have been as big as saucers when I first saw the breakfast spread - eggs and bacon and toast, as you would expect, but also other meats including lebanon bologna, and different types of pickles (several types of both sweet and sour), and various muffins and biscuits and jams and jellies, and my first helping of breakfast pie. What a delight to discover it was not just for dessert. I have been a fan of pie for breakfast ever since.

Doris Glenn Pendleton told a great story about breakfast pie. Apparently, she and Phil were visiting in "Pennsylvania Dutch" country, staying with a Mennonite family. The lady of the house asked Doris is she liked squash pie. Being “a Glenn woman,” she did not shilly-shally around and directly - albeit politely – said no, that squash pie was not to her liking. The lady then asked Phil the same question. Being the gentleman he was and not wanting to hurt the woman's feelings, he replied that yes, he was indeed partial to squash pie. Phil ended up eating his words, literally, because she took great care to serve him a generous slice of squash pie every morning at breakfast and, of course, being the fine gentleman he was and not wanting to hurt the woman's feelings, he ate every bit - even though he disliked squash pie every bit as much as, if not more than, Doris did.

How lovely to roll off to bed thinking of two delightful young ladies and two much missed friends.

Nite nite and God bless - Grammie Kay