Recently I've attempted to start a small, no...tiny, no...minuscule little pie baking business so a friend called a couple of weeks ago to hire me to bake a chocolate one for her husband's birthday. I promptly put it on my calendar and then promptly forgot to look back at my calendar!!! Oooops!! His birthday was today! It completely slipped my mind until this morning when after my crosswalk I sat down at my computer to waste some time till I had to be at my second job.
I'm not sure what brought his birthday and the forgotten pie to mind but there it was, front and center. I immediately called my friend to BEG her forgiveness but as I was talking to her I realized I had at least 20 minutes till I had to be at my next job so I told her never mind, that I was going to make that pie! And I did!!!! I called my second job and told them I'd be a little late and went after it with a vengeance. Thirty five minutes!! That's how long it took to get from a made-from-scratch crust to the huge and beautifully browned meringue.
My friend's husband is, of course, also my friend and, as it happens, also my dentist. His office is, thankfully, just down the street from my house so I boxed that sucker up, delivered it with instructions to refrigerate it, and raced back to my (again, thankfully) somewhat flexible job. But actually, as it turns out, I was exactly only two minutes late to pick up my first passenger. Whew!!
I can almost hear my mom say, "Jeanne, you were just flying by the seat of your pants!" Yep, I sure was! But it worked!
