The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted

by Elizabeth Berg

  She stands and looks at herself in the mirror, wipes away the mascara that has smeared beneath her eyes. Why didn’t she tell her friends the whole story, when what she wants is to move their friendship further along, to deepen the trust and intimacy they already enjoy? It is because she has to give up on another fantasy she’s been hiding from herself like a bug under a leaf. She has to stop thinking she and Brian will get back together. She has to stop talking about him. She has to stop dreaming about him, though that will be harder. Only last night she dreamed she ran into Brian and Cassandra at the deli case in the grocery store. Cassandra was having a hard time understanding that you could get more than one kind of cheese. Brian told her to look, just look, at the great variety before her. You could pick any kind you wanted. Cassandra looked at all the cheeses, and then she turned to Brian, her head held high, looking very confident and beautiful, and she said, “I don’t understand. Repeat.” Brian explained again. And again Cassandra said, “I don’t understand. Repeat.” Laura stepped in between them and very gently said, “Cassandra? Maybe you’d like some cheddar cheese. That’s here. Maybe you’d prefer Swiss. That’s here, too.” “Ah,” Cassandra said. “I want Gruyère,” and she stepped up to the counter to order. Laura turned to Brian and very quietly said, “What’s going on?” “The MRI is very bad,” Brian said, and Laura felt a quick rush of joy. If Cassandra died, Brian wouldn’t have to feel guilty about getting back with Laura. But Brian has thoroughly finished with her, not unkindly, and now she must finish with him. She must let go. The realization brings her more relief than sorrow, and she is surprised by this. Surprised and grateful.

  From the dining room comes another loud burst of laughter, and Laura suddenly remembers the meaning of the word “fulcrum.” It is a point of support. It is an agent through which vital powers are exercised.

  She opens the bathroom door and starts down the hall. She moves toward the teeth of the monster, and the stars, and the little spaceship with its deep yellow light shining out against all that darkness, all that empty space. When she sits down again at the table, she will propose a toast: to the dinner tonight and the dinners to come, to the forgiving pants they all wear, to the way that all of them have been through quite a bit, really, and here they all are, still walking.

  HOW TO MAKE AN APPLE PIE

  Dear Ruthie,

  You know I saw your mother over to the Save Way and she asked me would I send you my recipe for apple pie. She gave me your address and said if I’d send it to you right quick, you’d get it by your birthday, I understand your birthday is coming right up and forgive me that I forgot the date. I used to know all you kids’ birthdays and didn’t we have a time celebrating, you remember those cardboard crowns all loaded up with glitter and the magic wands we made out of sticks and ribbon? And remember how one year you used your wand to try to turn a frog into a prince? You waved your wand over him and you kissed him right on the mouth and then didn’t you have a fit when he stayed a frog? I have lots of nice memories from when you and your family lived next door but I sure can’t remember dates anymore and there’s plenty else has gone down the hopper of forgetfulness! Honey would you believe I am now eighty-six so I’m not exactly running on a full tank these days, and plenty other things have changed, too. You remember you used to come over and play in my closet and try on all my high heels, well, now you would only find Dr. Scholl’s and there’s even a walker in there but thank God I only needed that temporary. Bunions.

  Your mom said neither one of you can ever make a decent pie. That is really just an attitude problem which I will try and explain as long as I’m at it. She said you know it would make Ruthie so happy to get that recipe, it would be her best present. How a recipe would be your best present is beyond me. It makes me worry a bit about your life if you don’t mind my saying so. In addition to that, how many times did you sit and watch me make apple pie? Where I told you out every single thing I was doing? I wisht you’d have written down what I said, because I don’t have anything written down for any of my recipes. If you’d have written it down instead of staring out the winder the way you always did and can’t I just see you now, sitting there with your bare feet up on the chair with you, your arms wrapped around your knees, wearing those baggy shorts and that yellow top with three rows of ruffles your mama would have to practically pry off you to wash, but anyway if you’d have written it down but the one time, I would be spared the effort of trying to write it out and you would be spared the effort of trying to read my writing which never was very good but you know now I have got the arthritis so bad in my fingers I am purt near illegible. Which by now you surely see. But let us get to it.

  For the filling it is no mystery. Say I wonder did you know Nancy Drew turned into a movie? I remember I used to give you those Nancy Drew mysteries for your birthday every year and you would sit right down and start reading with the wrapping paper still hanging on. It never was a surprise when you got those books but it was a pleasure to you anyway. Which is kind of like what pie is like, come to think of it, nothing new but always kind of exciting. And see there, that is what we are supposed to be on is pie. I drift off. I always did, but it’s some worse now. I wonder though would you listen to just one more thing. I remember how you and your sister would lie on your stomachs on your beds or on a blanket in the back yard in the summer and read and read and read and I could just about see the heat of your imaginations rising up off you like steam. You can say what you want about movies, but to my mind they leave too little to the imagination, it is always better to read a book. Make up your own pictures, they are always realer because they come from inside out, not the other way around. Most every time you went to a movie you came over afterwards to tell me out the story and I would give you a dime. Sometimes you and your sister both came and told me out the story, each of you busting to get to the end and interrupting each other in a good-natured way, you and your sister got along most times. Though one time when you had a big fight with her I wonder do you remember you came and sat under my kitchen table and said you weren’t going home, you would like to move in with us and be an only child. You had that bear with you.

  Anyway the filling is a matter of sniff and add a bit of this, sniff and add a bit of that. Number one ingredient is apples, of course, and I have always favored green ones right off the tree if you can get them. Warm from the sun and never seen a refrigerator in their lives. As for the rest of what you add, you must respect the fact that apples are like people, all different, and the same apple can act a different way on a different day. It’s true. Lots of foods are like that, maybe all foods are like that. You got to let a thing be itself and work with it. Now say you got tart apples. Then you don’t need but a bit of lemon, say a half squeeze of a half of a lemon. But you always need lemon even if it’s just a little because a lemon is like a brassiere, it offers support even though you can’t hardly see it. Same with salt, you need a little salt always. Even with sweet things, do you see now they make caramels with that sea salt big as boulders right on the top? Acting like they discovered the cure for cancer? Long time ago, we always used to put salt on our caramels, me and all my friends. Not SEA SALT, just the stuff right out the round blue box, and we put it on Kraft caramels and I’ll tell you what, it was good. Anyway, add what I said and take a whiff. Then add some cinnamon, a big pinch, and sniff that. Keep adding till you get a good cinnamon smell, but don’t let it take over the apples, this is not cinnamon pie it is apple pie. Add just a touch of nutmeg, nutmeg must always work undercover, where you taste it but you don’t know what it is. Like mace in sweet rolls or coffee in chocolate cake. Add a pinch of ginger and a wee bit of cloves. Add some brown sugar and some white sugar, just enough to sweeten, but don’t deaden the spices. Your nose is your guide, just sniff sniff sniff, don’t you remember how I used to shove my nose in the bowl and once you called me the human vacuum. Now if you have a cold, forget making pie or anything else. Go over to someplace like the Olive Garden and load up on th
e garlic, that you will taste. You remember my husband, Terrence, he used to love the Olive Garden. I think the main reason is that he had a crush on one of the waitresses, which didn’t bother me one whit, that girl was about ten minutes old and what was he going to do. I think he just enjoyed looking at her and really so did I, she sure was a pretty little thing. Real shiny hair. I don’t know if you know this, Terrence died on me six months ago. I sure do miss him. He had that big rocker on the front porch and sometimes it moves in the wind and it’s like he’s come to keep me company. I sure do miss him. Now I’ll trust you not to tell that I sometimes talk out loud to him when he comes to see me that way, it gives a kind of comfort.

  What else. Well, you know you need a lot more butter than you think in an apple pie and what I want you to do when you make one is just go ahead and figure at least half a stick and depending on the personality of the apples it might be more. Put it in the mix in little slices and put some more on the top when you load the apples into the pie shell. About now I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, hold the phone, that’s a lot of butter, on account of there’s also butter in the crust. Wrong. There’s no butter in my crust, I think there is something conceited about butter in a crust, for mine it is all Crisco straight out the can and I will stand by that until the day I die. Isn’t it funny, I’ve said that all my life, “until the day I die,” and now it isn’t that far off! I hope it is, but the truth is that really if you take the long view it isn’t. Could be any day, I suppose, what with all that’s give out and do you know I have a little touch of cancer to top it all off. Do you think that people ever really do believe they will die, that the world will just go along as always without them? I wonder if we aren’t all just a little surprised at the moment of crossover, if we don’t look back over our shoulders saying, Now hold on.

  But Crisco. Crisco and the crust. Of course we will get to the full crust recipe in a minute though I will tell you now that the most important ingredient in piecrust is something you would never guess in a million years. Not in a million years. I never did tell you out that part, the most important ingredient in piecrust, I just kept it in my head, but now I will write it to you and you can pay me my million dollars either by credit card or cash, ha ha. Oh, but you know what, I should have said first thing to do when you make an apple pie is put on an apron and some good music, big band music is good if you’ve got it. If not, country and western. Add that right up top. I should have mentioned that right up top. I don’t know why you cook better in an apron, but it’s true. And if it’s at all a nice day out, I suggest you open the kitchen door and cook barefoot. If it’s a winter day, why you hope for snow, there’s nothing like snow drifting down when your hands are deep in apples and spices, and you should wear a sweater with a pocket with a button and a safety pin and a hankie in it. Just kidding, but you know I swear every apple pie I made in winter I was wearing that sweater, I might could leave it to you in my will. (I hope you’re smiling, are you?) Now, I should have said before, too, that you might could eat one of the raw apples with all the spices for taste. Your nose is good, but you might could eat one, too. The taste should be a bright sweet, not a dull one. Put that up higher in the recipe, too. And also I should have told you the reason why you make the filling first, you always make the filling first. That is so the apples have time to meet and greet before they go into the oven, they marinate you might say. And anyway, that filling gives you something good to smell whilst you make the crust. Good smells lift a person’s spirits. Sometimes on a day I wasn’t baking I’d just boil water on the stove with cinnamon and cloves in it and maybe an orange peel.

  What else. Oh! You need flour as a thickener. A good pinch or a little pile in the palm of your hand. We all need something to hold us together, even apples.

  Pardon me while I take a rest, my hand is like to fall right off.

  Back again and with a glass of sherry to boot. I never did drink much but now I see the point. It’s only sherry, and its color is half the pleasure and of course the pretty little glass. I don’t drink coffee anymore, that gets my heart wild as a West Texas cowgirl and as one who comes from West Texas I can tell you that is some wild.

  I have read this over and I think I should say again that the flavor of your filling must be bright. Terrence used to say when the flavor is right it makes you want to slap your daddy and don’t you just know exactly what he means. Remember too to add a little at a time of all your ingredients, you can always add more but you can’t take away. Like angry words. After you make a few pies, you’ll be an expert, you’ll be able to do it in your sleep, which I did once. I made a pie in my sleep. It was when my best friend had her first baby, and she called me at something like three-thirty in the morning and she says, “It’s a girl, I’m so hungry I could eat the walls, would you please make me an apple pie and bring it right over?” And I did. Course I woke up to drive to the hospital, but I swear I was asleep when I made that pie. And it tasted fine. A taste is all I got, too, my friend ate the whole dang thing with a tablespoon, and where did she take the first bite from? Right smack in the middle of the pie, and didn’t you always want to do that yourself? One day not so long ago I had a hankering for yellow cake with chocolate frosting and I made one and cut me a big piece from the exact middle and ate it and then I cut up the rest of the cake and gave it away to the Dooleys, I wonder do you remember them. Of course cake gets stale faster all cut up, but I didn’t want to give them a cake with a hole in the center it would be too embarrassing. I wonder why we are so often embarrassed by things we do that almost any other person would like to do, too, we hadn’t ought to be that way.

  Are you ready for the crust? Now here comes my top-secret secret: You must not let the crust know you’re afraid of it, which you will be the first few times. You must steel yourself inside like your little child is in danger of falling off a high place, he is right on the edge, and you mustn’t startle him but rather speak calmly to make him turn around and come to you. You might be nervous on the inside, but outside you keep calm as rain. That summer rain I mean that is so quiet and matter of fact and falls straight down like a curtain.

  Now I recommend you use one of those stainless steel bowls if you can, I switched to them a while back and you know there is a lightness to them and you can turn them around with one hand, while you are making the dough, seems like the dough likes to spin a bit, leastwise it makes it easier to mix. But once again I am ahead of myself.

  So for the crust, first get your bowl out, and get out a coffee cup and put a bunch of ice cubes in it and add water, that will be your ice water that you add later. Into the bowl put a nice big glob of Crisco, maybe it is a cup, and twice as much flour and a big pinch of sugar and a little pinch of salt. Now use a pastry blender or a fork if you must but a fork is not as good. Nor are the new pastry blenders as good as the old ones, you might could find a good one at an antiques store, the old ones have the wooden handles painted red or green. They are the ones you put your hand on and right away you can feel the history of other hands on them. It lends a comfort and they are just better dough mashers anyhow.

  So there you are, and you turn the bowl around with one hand and mash together the ingredients until you have what look like little pea-size blobs. Casually add a bit of ice water, maybe a quarter cup or so, how much water you need will depend on how much humidity is in the air that day. Add enough so that the dough sticks together. NOT TOO STICKY. Make it sticky like it makes you want to play with it. When you have a nice ball of dough, divide it. Then sprinkle flour lightly over the place where you’re going to roll the piecrust out. You need a heavy wooden rolling pin and you need one of those ribbed cloth covers for it, you can still find them, and you can roll out on purt near anything, I used to use that old flowered tablecloth, but it’s nice to use a pastry cloth which you can also still buy, they have not corrupted them. Put the dough in the middle of the floured pastry cloth and shape it with both hands into a round shape. This le
ts it know what you expect of it. Flour your rolling pin a bit and then start rolling out the dough. People will tell you you must roll in one direction only. Not necessarily. What’s most important is a quick, even pressure, roll that thing out evenly until it is slightly larger than the dish you’re going to bake the pie in. Then gently roll the dough around the rolling pin, and unroll it over the dish. You will feel like the Queen of Sheba when you do this, it works out so nice. Pat the dough into the pan and trim off the excess so that you have just a nice little overhang. Now is where you put the apples in and you are almost done. Put the apples in, put a little more butter on the top, and give a good whiff. It should like to make your toes curl. Now roll out the top crust as above and put it over the apples. Crimp the crust, which I’m sure you remember that part at least don’t you? I often used to let you do it. You pinch those edges together for a pretty design. And you need to vent the top crust, and for that you can just stick fork tines in here and there or you can make a shape. You one time made the shape of an apple with a leaf on one of my pies, I hardly helped you at all. But you know you can do anything, you can spell out a person’s name or make autumn leaves or a dog with a bone or whatever you want, it is your pie, and there’s the value of making your own as if the taste weren’t enough. Sprinkle the top crust with cinnamon sugar, and you can roll out the extra dough and put butter and cinnamon sugar on it and then roll it up to make what I called roly-polies. I see now that some folks cut out shapes from the extra dough to put on top of the pie but that is in the bakeries where the pie costs around twenty dollars, which if everything else wasn’t conspiring to give me a heart attack that about would.