Instant Disaster

My parents have been out of town the past few days. And I have been enjoying privileges generally reserved to grandparents (aka spoiling the children).

That's right...they've stayed up past bedtime, gone on outings, and had treat and sweets out of measure.

I think they've had fun, but there's been no danger of them mistaking me for a real Grandma. Partly because I am far too easily irritated to be truly mature. And partly because my work in the kitchen, while usually edible, doesn't always turn out perfectly.

Take my lemon meringue pie as point in case. Since Dad doesn't care much for meringue, we make rather a big deal out of fixing this treat when he's out of town. Fortunately, Dad isn't gone often enough for the treat to go old. The kids started begging for it weeks ago.

So I bought the ingredients while at the store last week. Here, I first failed the test of true grandmother-hood. Knowing that I would be working half of the time my parents were gone, I admit that I bought pudding mix and a pre-fabricated pie crust.

It wasn't until yesterday when I was ready to actually make the pie that I realized I had accidentally bought instant pudding.

At this point, with the wisdom of sixty years in the kitchen behind me, I might have served pudding pie instead.

But being only a big sister, and having promised meringue, meringue I was determined to serve. Further, since instant pudding I had, instant pudding I would use. It would have been a waste to do otherwise.

The pudding was ready in the five minutes the package promised, but I wasn't ready to beat meringue. So, meanwhile, I stuck it in the fridge. (This, even though I knew most of the recipes instruct one to spread the meringue over hot lemon filling.) My leisure for beating meringue didn't come until dinnertime, while I was waiting for pasta to cook. Peter was grating cheese while I separated the eggs, and he took the moment to inquire why the Nazis killed the Jews during WWII.

Perhaps under these circumstances I may be excused for forgetting my rule to separate eggs only one at a time. Instead, talking away, I separated them cheerfully one after the other into the same bowl. And of course when I broke the yoke of my last egg...I had to start separating all over again, having contaminated the whole bunch.

It was about this time that I began to be sure the pie would fail. When finally I started beating the white, I was disturbed, but not terrifically surprised, to see tiny droplets of grease fountaining out of the electric mixer. The mixer would be unruly for this pie!

Taking courage, though, and figuring I couldn't very well hurt it by beating, I covered the whole mess, put the beaters on medium speed, and finished fixing dinner. I must have kept it going for around 15 minuntes.

I managed to get soft peaks out of it. Happy even with that, I spread the whites over my pudding mix and popped it into the oven to brown. I checked it more than once, with considerable trepidation.

Despite all odds, it looked perfectly lovely when I pulled it out of the oven and set it in the fridge to cool. For the first time since I saw the word INSTANT on the pudding box, I had hope for my pie.

Alas! I really shouldn't have hoped to enjoy the priveleges of grandparenthood when I have none of the experience. At least, when I am a grandparent, I shall have already learned that instant pudding separates when heated.

But I doubt my grandchildren could enjoy totally-from-scratch genuine lemon meringue pie much more than my brothers and sister enjoyed pre-fab nothing-from-scratch lemon meringue...soup.