food | HIGH ALERT

The Best God-damned Pie I Ever Did Have

I like pie. I like pie a whole-damned bunch. My life was once a proud example of debaucherous excess and consumptive revelry. Health and common sense have in recent years stripped, simplified and cleansed my habits to a point where very few vices remain. The occasional pie is one such vice.

As an x-mas gift this year, my beloved wife was kind enough to give me a handmade pie-of-the-month-club type coupon book allowing me to get a true and proper handle on the pie scene here in Montreal. I am (of course) keeping the results of my monthly pie tasting in a publicly available database. Follow along with me in my pie adventure at www.andorandrew.com/pies.

My grandmother's cookbook

My grandmother was a remarkable woman. She was a rancher. She was a birder. She was college educated with a degree in agriculture. She was involved in politics and was at one time the leader of my home town's regional irrigation district (the rough equivalent of mayor in the unincorporated rural town that I grew up in). She was active in the United church and an early proponent of both gay and female priests.

She was also a member of something called the British Columbia Women's Institute and as a result, I occasionally found myself underfoot at BCWI meetings when I was a child.