13. Learn to make my mom's Black Bottom Pie: Lesson 1

In honor of Easter, Friday I spent the morning with my Mom, but instead of the usual clutter patrol, we had a lesson in pie.

To fully appreciate this feat, a little background is in order: My Mom's Black Bottom Pie is legendary. My Nana had a housekeeper/nanny named Maggie, who helped raise my Mom and subsequently taught me how to make an excellent hospital corner, who was the original pie maker.

When my Mom decided that she would like to learn how to make it, she asked Maggie come to our house and teach her...but Maggie would show up with a pie already made! Lovely, but no help to the learning process. So Moms dug in and tried the recipe on her own. As she will tell you, you had to eat her first effort with a spoon...for about three days. Several people have asked her for the recipe since those days and made the attempt themselves, with equally poor results.

However, over time, and a little input from Maggie on what she was doing wrong, Moms figured out all the pie's tricks, and it became the desert of choice for family and friends alike. You were special indeed if my mom made a pie for dinner when you were invited.

For years my family has poked and prodded me to learn how to make this dessert...it really is that good, by the way. It doesn't matter how much you have eaten beforehand, Black Bottom Pie always finds room to slide right down.

It is a graham cracker crust, a layer of what is basically homemade chocolate pudding, a layer of homemade custard, topped with a layer of real whipped cream and chocolate shavings. The trick is doing about five different things all at once to get it together...oh, and being able to make all that stuff from scratch.

But I digress...I have always contended that, frankly, I don't really know anyone that I'd go to all the trouble for. (It takes my mom about an hour to make one, longer if she doubles the recipe. And she is a pie-making machine.)

BUT... in an attempt to carry on a family tradition (and to make my husband happy), I decided that I should learn how to master this, if for no other reason than every woman should have a recipe in her arsenal that will completely impress her mother-in-law. :)

So...with supervision, here is the finished result of my first pie-making lesson! I'll need a little practice to get it on my own, but this was a good start. And there wasn't a scrap left over today at our Easter lunch, so I must have done something right. Or so they tell me. (No one has keeled over yet...)