this morning

While Alice fought sleep and I rolled out dough, I read through my grandmother's strawberry rhubarb pie recipe. It is typed and glue-sticked to a rectangle of black construction paper. My mental snapshots of Meema are warm- set on her front porch, in her kitchen, and on the beaches of Matunuck, Rhode Island. They're in my childhood kitchen too- hearing her voice on the phone before I left for school in the morning.

As I read her recipe and sliced our backyard strawberries, I wished I could hear her voice again: I don't have enough rhubarb Meema, is that okay? Can I substitute mango juice for orange? Will it need less sugar? And then I felt a sudden, surprising, frog-in-my-throat sadness not to have had more time with her. I was so little when she died and the loss becomes more evident as I age. I wish I'd had a chance to know her differently, like I know and love my mom. As women, wives, mothers. Friends.

Our second strawberry rhubarb pie of the season is sitting on the counter and the oven is almost done self-cleaning. Unlike Meema, the two go hand in hand when I'm baking. Last weekend (or was it the one before?) was my first attempt at crust from scratch. It came out good, too good in fact, because then I found myself a bit too cocky in the prep of my second ever batch of crust. Attempt numero duo yielded altogether too wet a dough, and though the end result is still delicious, the watery dripping in the oven caused a smoke-capade every time I opened the oven door. So, now it self-cleans and I promise to pay more attention to adding that ice water tablespoon, not measuring cup, at a time. I promise.

But just in case I make the same mistake again- what would you do about watery crust, Meema? Can I just kneed in more flour or will that mess up the consistency?

In case you're interested: THIS is the crust recipe I used. The tips and tricks were incredibly helpful for a novice like myself and the result was delicious- flaky and golden, even when over-watered and steamed.