Stan’s Obligatory Blog

One day this week I was sitting in my office and started smelling a pie baking in the kitchen downstairs. This happens sometimes, since my office is in a house, and we have a fully-functioning kitchen. It was a peach pie, and a half-gallon of ice cream appeared, too. It was quite good. And I was suddenly seized by an urge to make an apple pie. I’ve only made a pie from scratch once before, and never made an apple pie. But there’s no fighting these urges.

I got some apples today when I went to do our grocery shopping. I looked up a pie crust recipe. And I got down to business.

Making the crust wasn’t too hard. I used to make quiches, so I’m not a stranger to pie crust. But this was the first time in many years. The worst part of the whole process was peeling and cutting the apples. Then I cooked the apples for the filling, which wasn’t too hard.

The instructions said to cool the apples to room temperature before assembling the pie, but I was a bit impatient. They were still a little bit warm, but I don’t think it hurt anything.

I baked the pie for just about 38 minutes before it looked perfectly done. So I took it out and put it in the laundry room to cool. Again, the instructions said to cool it completely before cutting it. But I was impatient. I wanted to try it out. So I cut a piece and ate it.

It was good.

Lucinda looked at me kind of strangely, since I think this is the first dessert she’s ever seen me make that didn’t involve chocolate in some form. But it was a fun little project.

Today’s bike ride was down to Larchmont Village for a bagel at Noah’s. Sure, there’s closer bagel places, but that’s not the point.

We rode out across Pasadena to Eagle Rock, and then down to the L.A. River and into Silver Lake. We rode around the reservoir and down the hill by the dog park. Then across Koreatown to Hancock Park. When we got to Larchmont, we saw Snow White’s wishing well.

The bagel at Noah’s was quite good, and they had fresh-squeezed orange juice, so I was happy.

The big movie billboards on the wall of Paramount Studios were pitching a movie called “Things We Lost in the Fire”, which seemed appropriate enough right now.

After the stop, we rode up Wilton to Franklin, and then east across the Shakespeare Bridge. Then back home through Eagle Rock to La Loma in Pasadena.

It was a very nice ride.

44 miles.
cycling