Monday, August 05, 2013

Cobbler

When it comes to desserts, my biggest weakness is pie or cobbler, served warm, with ice cream.  If there is food in heaven, surely apple pie ala mode will be served daily.   
My mother turned out pies that were fit for a king, pies of every flavor and kind.  The only one I never cared much for was sweet cream raisin, but somebody must have liked it because she made it often, especially in winter when no fruit was in season.  
I don't remember Mother ever making a cobbler.  Grandma, however, made cobblers often for family dinners held at her house.  The ones she made were actually just rectangular pies, with bottom and top crust.  The crusts on her cobblers were thicker than on pies, though.  I liked that feature a lot.  
When Cliff and I got married, I had learned some cooking skills from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.  Corn bread, biscuits, macaroni and cheese from scratch... I practiced all those items in the four years I lived on my own.  I'd make corn bread in the cast iron skillet Mother gave me and eat it for three or four meals.  Then I'd make macaroni and cheese and eat that for supper for several nights.  I never did anything with meat, so cooking beef, chicken, and pork was a skill I had to learn during my first years of marriage.  
I did master pie crust and pies, though.  And yes, I would have pie for breakfast and supper until it was gone.  See, this is why Cliff needs to outlive me.  Left to my own devices, I don't eat a balanced diet.  Of course, neither does he.  We should have kept the motorcycle, because then there would have been a better chance of our dying at the same time.  But I digress.  
The cobblers I like best are the kind Grandma made, with thick top and bottom pastry crust and lots of fruit.  However, here is the kind I made today:
The peaches from my tree are especially wormy and diseased this year, for some reason, and there aren't many of them because of the snow we got on May 2.  Still, I'm getting enough to put in the freezer and some to use on our cereal most mornings.  Today I made the cobbler you see above.  
Because I try to keep both my weight and Cliff's under control, I shy away from pastry crust most of the time.  I rarely make sugary desserts at all because they are so tempting.  But as cobblers go, the biscuit kind is the best choice, calorie-wise.  I was excited just knowing how happy Cliff would be to have warm peach cobbler with a carefully-measured portion of ice cream on top.  He often has to make do with a handful of animal crackers for dessert, or a half-cup of cheap vanilla ice cream (cheap because the cream content in it isn't as high) with half a banana sliced over it.  
I just knew that my cobbler would make his day.  
So we ate our stuffed peppers and cooked cabbage, and then he got himself a cup of coffee.  He went to the couch, sat down, and opened the laptop to check Craigslist.  
I dished up the cobbler, topped it with ice cream, sat it on the end table beside him, and waited to hear him gushing his gratitude.  
It didn't happen.  He didn't even look up from the computer.  
I watched.  I waited.  
Finally I said, "Cliff, your ice cream is all going to be melted.  Why aren't you eating dessert?"  
"Oh," he said, putting the computer aside almost reluctantly.  "I didn't know it was that hot." 

I might have known the day would come when I take second place to Craigslist.  Let me just say, if I ever get that kind of reaction again to a special dessert I make, it will be the last time I make it.  Hell hath no fury like a woman whose dessert is scorned.   

4 comments:

  1. Looking good!!!!

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  2. I love dessert. My grocery store is evil in that you can't get to the produce section without walking through their bakery/deli. So far I haven't bought anything but it sure tests my will power every week.

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  3. I love desserts and pies are a favorite. I haven't made one in ages as it's just me here. I bought one at the grocery store bakery a week ago and had to throw half of it out. I should have put it in the freezer, but thought it would last longer. Cliff must have been really enthralled with Craigslist to delay eating your cobbler. It looks wonderful!

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  4. Oh, dear, dessert is now 2nd to craiglist? I'm not a fan of pie, although my mom made fresh blueberry pie today and I "choked" down a slice, with whipped cream. :) I am a fanatic about apple crisp though. I love strawberry/rhubarb or rhubarb custard pie. I guess I'm just finicky!

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