Oct. 3, ‘09-Hawken and I are back from Grandpa and Grandma’s house. Greg and Tom had ample opportunity to visit, re-charge and immerse themselves in duck hunting opener spent in the backwaters.  Greg shot 2 Wood Ducks.  Tom heads to the living room bookshelf and reaches up to select a Pie Cook Book that he found @ the LaCrosse Public Library. Hawken opens the wooden island cupboard door and finds flour. Then he gets the bluebird colored antique wooden chair and scrapes it along the laminate flooring. Greg and I choose our apple peelers and share a scrapdish to let the red peelings drop in.  Greg uses Grandma Verna’s peeler she used when she would bake pies.  Greg had called pal, Mike Bagniewski to come and hunt  in the late afternoon. I mentioned whether or not Mike would want to watch pie construction. “Oh, he’ll want to watch.” So Mike came and it was great catching up with his life for he used to help out here during high school. Greg and I were  apple peeling maniacs.  Hawken thinks his job is to just keep adding more flour-one kid spoon @ a time while Tom is trying to calculate about how much flour is in it while visiting with Mike.  Hawken then thought Mike should want to play tractors and farm, but Mike was too en-grossed in visiting-he missed the request.  Hawken’s back on his blue chair standing next to the other punkin’ head, just preaching to Tom about adding more flour. I see Tom laugh with the look of concern growing and he adds the L word. The word that can send lusty love up a good Polish boy’s spine. Mmmhmm friends, it’s LARD.  We joke about it, but it sent Mum memories into the conversation now.  Verna had to use lard, so we use it today. My Ma Sharon used whole wheat flour, so we had to use that too!  I see lil’ fingers dipping in the crust and Hawken makes flattering comments “Mm, yum, I love dat. More flour is stuck on my spoon.” Tom trades him a treat for rights to the pie crust bowl. Tom utilizes his Mum’s rolling pin and so perfectly lightly dusts the wooden butcher block island surface with flour. It’s a rythmic, methodical rolling motion and it impresses us. He delicately lifts his creation over the pie tin Verna also used. All an honoring of tradition and ritual and spreading of re-birth in self discovery of one’s passions-whatever they might be. The Pie Guy baked one pie for our family of four and we shared  pieces with family that knew the significance of the pretty pie, the dainty pie that was set before a King. 

Bake a pie,

Sue Roskos