LMPKING

Growing up, whenever my dad made the lemon-meringue pie (referred to as a “LMP” - pronounced limp - his mom’s recipe), we got very excited. These LMPs have such history (my dad and his brothers fighting over who got the biggest pieces by placing little flags on them, and sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to switch the other’s flags). And they are amazing. And I can make them. And I know they’re damn good. Good enough for me to tell our church’s best chef/cook/baker that my LMP could beat her pie in a competition, hands down.

And I have been doing that, for almost a year. So I joined this couple’s Lenten home group, and we had a potluck tonight. It was obvious what we would have for desert: a lemon meringue pie bake-off.

And I have continued to talk my pie up non-stop. People were beginning to get worried, and I received many concerned and sympathetic looks saying, “Oh, it’s cute that Adam wants to challenge our church’s best baker to a competition…”

I spent 4 hours in the kitchen yesterday baking pies, and they turned out great (well, one did (here is a nice aerial shot), the other’s meringue was pretty weak). And I actually forgot about my dishes, and my host-mom had to clean up after me (stupid Adam).

Tonight was the night, so we served up a slice of mine and a slice of her pie and handed them out to everyone. Then we sat in the living room and ate, mused about the pies (mine was a graham cracker crust, she used a normal pie crust) and eventually the time came to vote. No one really wanted to say anything at first. Finally, one woman said, “Okay, you both know I love you…and we’ll all still be friends after this…but I am going to have to say I really love the graham cracker crust pie.”

And that’s all it took - I easily had a majority of the vote. “I like the graham cracker one…” “Yah, the graham cracker crust pie.” My filling was better than hers, and people liked my crust. I can still take a few meringue lessons from her, but overall - the Cleaveland Magic LMP won! And I am willing to take on ANYONE else who claims to make a killer LMP.

I think I’ll get a personalized license plate someday. LMPKING. Beautiful…

Tagged as: Baking, Lemon-Meringue-Pie, Pies