Steve is a New York City guitar guy with an impressive resume: he’s got a BA in composition from the Berklee College of Music and has worked with artists as varied as Bo Diddley, John Sebastian, Chico Hamilton, Carl Wilson, Robert Lamm, the Mamas and the Papas, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Nora York, and the Joffrey Ballet. His Broadway credits include Rent, Tick Tick Boom, Johnny Guitar, They Wrote That, People Be Heard, and Up in the Air.

His current band is an instrumental trio with Steve on guitar, of course. They gig around New York City and have just completed their second CD.   Steve was a founding member of Nine Below Zero, known to many blues enthusiasts in the eighties and nineties, and he lent his guitar skills more recently to Bucktooth Johnson, which I listened to with delight many times at Scotland Yard in Hoboken.

For the past few years he’s had an ongoing collaboration with singer-songwriter Hope Nunnery, who creates beautiful tunes that evoke gospel and Appalachian folk songs.  Their collaboration resulted in a stunning album called Wilderness Lounge, and they’re at work on a second album.

Steve’s also currently working with composer Jamie Lawrence–playing guitar on a documentary film about Sean Penn’s work in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. 

Steve’s the author of over fifteen books published by the likes of Music Sales Inc. and Hal Leonard, and till its recent closing he was a multi-faceted teacher at the New School’s Guitar Study Center.  I first met him there when I signed up for the wonderful Blues Ensemble course. Steve’s been giving private lessons for over twenty years, and his website gives a terrific glimpse of the wide variety of students who study with him.

I asked Steve what he’d advise people pursuing creative goals of all kinds, and here’s what he said:

Number one: just do the work and don’t worry so much about the result. It’s a cliché, but the hardest steps are the first ones. Don’t wait around for permission to do it, or until you think you are “good” enough. Just start and see what happens.

Number two: Role model the things you like. Borrow, copy, steal. All the greats have. Inevitably your own voice will shine through anyway. In my mind “art” is more cultural than individual. Think of yourself as part of the great universe of creativity, instead of a lone voice. Be part of the culture. You don’t have to invent it.

Number three: Don’t take anyone else’s rules and numbers and advice too seriously. It may help you—or not!

Visit Steve’s website for lots more information about his projects, as well as video and audio links.  You can buy copies of his CDs there too!

Rum was a by-product of the sugar-making process, and I knew this pie had to have rum. Who can think of the islands without thinking of coconuts? But most recipes for coconut cream pie omit that crucial ingredient.

I finally found what I was looking for in a Caribbean cookbook I bought long ago at a flea market. It’s from the Time-Life series, a wonderful cookbook series dating from decades ago, when travel and exotic menus weren’t such an easy part of our lives as they are now. Nearly every cuisine you can name is represented in the series, and each gets two books—a big hardcover with pictures of food and festivals, plus recipes, and a small spiral-bound booklet with even more recipes.

I have quite a collection of these cookbooks, assembled from garage sales, flea markets, and used-book stores. Usually I find either the big hardcover or the small booklet first, then have the thrill of finding the missing half of the set at some whole other venue.

Anyway, the Time-Life version of the pie is very labor-intensive, so I invented a variation that uses the same flavorings—dark rum, nutmeg, and vanilla—but substitutes boxed pudding mix.

The crust is a variation on one we’ve used before—very flaky and rich with butter AND lard.

Crust:

1-1/2 cups flour
6 tablespoons butter, very cold, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons lard, very cold, cut into small pieces
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
4 to 6 tablespoons ice water

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the butter and lard. Use two knives scissor fashion or your fingers to mix the flour mixture and the shortening together till the result looks like coarse meal.

Add 4 tablespoons of ice water, one at a time, tossing the mixture with a fork till it clings together. Add more ice water if necessary. Flour your hands and gather the mixture into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for ½ hour or more.

When you are ready to roll it out, flour your rolling surface and rolling pin. Pat the dough gently into a circle an inch thick or even thinner—this makes it easier to keep a circular shape when you begin to roll. Make sure to use plenty of flour and rotate the dough from time to time, sprinkling more flour underneath to make sure it doesn’t stick to your rolling surface.

When you’ve shaped it roughly into a circle large enough for your pie pan, fold it into quarters and gently transfer it to the pan, unfolding it and smoothing it to fit. Trim the edges, if necessary, so you have only an extra half inch all around. Now tuck the overhanging crust under. To make a fancy edge like in the picture, place the index and middle finger of one hand on the edge pointing out and with half an inch between them. Use the thumb of the other hand to push a little ridge into the dough, working your way all around the edge of the pie doing the same thing.  Prick the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork.

Bake the empty crust at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then check on it and pat the dough down if it’s starting to puff up. Bake it for an additional 10 minutes or more. It should be starting to turn slightly brown when you take it out. (You’ll be baking the pie again to brown the meringue so you don’t want the edges of the crust to get too brown now.)

Let it cool while you make the filling.

Filling:

1 box Jell-O “cook & serve” vanilla pudding and pie filling—not instant
2 cups milk
1 cup “sweetened flake coconut”—from the aisle of the grocery store where you find flour and other baking supplies
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons dark rum
½ teaspoon nutmeg

Bring the milk and pudding mix to a full boil, stirring all the while. Turn off the heat and add the coconut and other ingredients. Let the pudding mixture cool on top of the stove while you make the meringue.  Stir the mixture occasionally. 

Meringue Topping:

4 egg whites
6 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon cream of tartar

Beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until the egg whites are frothy, then slowly add the sugar, beating all the while. After a minute or two, the egg whites should become quite stiff. Continue beating until stiff peaks remain if you remove the beaters.

Meringue can be tricky. To make sure you aren’t beating a soupy mess forever instead of getting the result you want, make sure the beaters are perfectly clean and there are no specks of egg yolk or shell in your egg whites before you start. You can scoop extraneous objects out with a spoon. 

Turn the pudding mixture into the pie shell.  Spread the meringue over the top.  Make sure the meringue touches the inner edge of the crust–it has a tendency to shrink while it bakes and this will keep you from having bare spots around the edges of your pie. 

Bake the pie at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the meringue turns a delicate brown.  Let the pie cool a bit and then refrigerate it.  Serve it cold, and refrigerate the leftovers.

A slice of Strawberry Fields Pie

“Strawberry Fields Forever” isn’t the blusiest of tunes, though the Beatles certainly owe a debt to the blues tradition. But please indulge me . . .

These early summer days are perfect strawberry weather, and for me strawberries always evoke those moments when time stands still and life seems unbearably sweet. There were more of them in the sixties than there have been lately, and music was always a part of them. How appropriate that the John Lennon memorial in Central Park is Strawberry Fields.

I’ve been making this pie since I was in high school. One of my friends taught me how, and when I make it I still pull out the postcard she sent me in 1965 when I wrote to her from college asking her to remind me of the details.

The beautiful thing about this pie is that the strawberries don’t end up being cooked, so they taste as sweet and fresh as if you were picking them yourself and eating them as you went along.

Prepare the crust well in advance so it’s cool by the time you add the filling.

Crust:

1-1/4 cup sifted flour

1/3 + 1 heaping tablespoon shortening

1/2 teaspoon + 1 pinch salt

1/6 cup cold water + extra

Sift the dry ingredients together, then cut the shortening in using two knives scissors style. The shortening shouldn’t be completely blended or the crust will be tough. You want bits of shortening, no larger than lentils, to remain because they melt as the crust bakes and make the crust flaky.

Next, sprinkle the water over the flour, salt, shortening mixture and use a fork to toss and blend. Use more water if necessary, but only a little bit at a time. The dough should be moist enough to adhere together in a ball, but not sticky. Form the dough into a flat patty, using plenty of flour on your hands, then roll it out. Use plenty of flour on your rolling surface and rolling pin too. Turn the dough frequently as you roll it out, and sprinkle with more flour, so it doesn’t stick to the rolling surface.

When you’ve shaped it roughly into a circle large enough for your pie pan, fold it into quarters and gently transfer it to the pan, unfolding it and smoothing it to fit. Trim the edges, if necessary, so you have only an extra half inch all around. Now tuck the overhanging crust under. To make a fancy edge like in the picture, place the index and middle finger of one hand on the edge pointing out and with half an inch between them. Use the thumb of the other hand to push a little ridge into the dough, working your way all around the edge of the pie doing the same thing.

Prick the bottom and sides of the crust and bake it at 450 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until it turns a nice golden color.

Filling:

1 box strawberry jello

1 ¾ cups cold water

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon vanilla

16 oz. fresh strawberries = 1 pint

Whipping cream

Wash the strawberries, remove the stems, and slice the berries. If they are really huge, as strawberries tend to be these days, cut them in half lengthwise before you slice them.

Bring the jello, water, cornstarch, and vanilla to a boil, then take it off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. If you’re in a hurry, you can refrigerate it, but don’t let it set up. Add the strawberries and pour the jello-berry mixture into the cooled pie shell.

Chill the pie till the jello is firm—two hours is usually enough.

Serve the pie topped with sweetened whipped cream.

Next month: Coconut Cream Pie

Like Led Zeppelin, I added something to the mix. In my case, it’s rhubarb. And the custard effect results from the combination of eggs, sugar, and rhubarb juices, rather than from eggs and milk.

When my husband was growing up, his family had a rhubarb plant in their yard, and one of his earliest cooking experiments was rhubarb pie. Now rhubarb is hard to find. We’ve tried several times to grow it but it doesn’t thrive in a yard overshadowed by huge trees.

Most grocery stores ignore it these days. Who’d want rhubarb when you can buy any fruit or vegetable you want all year round? In earlier times, rhubarb would have been appreciated as one of the first fresh growing things available in the spring.

I tracked mine down at the fancy Whole Foods store, an hour round trip for me because of New Jersey traffic, and $5.95 a pound!

Crust:

It’s the standard crust we’ve used before so I’m recycling the instructions from earlier pies:

1 cup sifted flour

1/3 cup shortening

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/6 cup cold water

OR

1-1/4 cup sifted flour

1/3 + 1 heaping tablespoon shortening

1/2 teaspoon + 1 pinch salt

1/6 cup cold water + extra

I’ve discovered that increasing the ingredients slightly makes it easier to roll out a nice piece of dough that fits the pan with no thin spots around the edges.

Sift the dry ingredients together, then cut the shortening in using two knives scissors style. The shortening shouldn’t be completely blended or the crust will be tough. You want bits of shortening, no larger than lentils, to remain because they melt as the crust bakes and make the crust flaky.

Next, sprinkle the water over the flour, salt, shortening mixture and use a fork to toss and blend. Use more water if necessary, but only a little bit at a time. The dough should be moist enough to adhere together in a ball, but not sticky. Form the dough into a flat patty, using plenty of flour on your hands, then roll it out. Use plenty of flour on your rolling surface and rolling pin too. Turn the dough frequently as you roll it out, and sprinkle it with more flour, so it doesn’t stick to the rolling surface.

When you’ve shaped it roughly into a circle large enough for your pie pan, fold it into quarters and gently transfer it to the pan, unfolding it and smoothing it to fit. Trim the edges, if necessary, so you have only an extra half inch all around. Now tuck the overhanging crust under. To make a fancy edge like in the picture, place the index and middle finger of one hand on the edge pointing out and with half an inch between them. Use the thumb of the other hand to push a little ridge into the dough, working your way all around the edge of the pie doing the same thing.

If you want to speed things up, you can use a prepared crust. I’ve discovered that the frozen crusts that come in their own little aluminum pie pans work very well. They are surprisingly flaky, and the only giveaway that they are not home-made is that the decorative edge is a bit too regular. I’ve also tried the prepared crusts that are sold in the refrigerator case, already shaped to go into your own pie pan and then curled up into long rolls that you unroll. Those are not so good.

Filling:

3 beaten eggs

1 ½ cups of sugar

¼ teaspoon of nutmeg

A pinch of salt

4 cups of rhubarb, cut into half-inch chunks

Mix the filling well and spoon it into the prepared crust, smoothing it out evenly. Bake the pie at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until the crust is nicely browned and the custard isn’t runny.

It’s great with vanilla ice cream.

Next month: My childhood strawberry pie

The cloth is from a huge open-air market in Accra.

I picked this pie for March with a nod to St. Patrick’s Day because when we think of limes, we think–GREEN.

Except key limes are yellow and that’s part of the story behind Key Lime Pie. It’s an American classic, and like many great recipes is a result of making do with the ingredients at hand. Key limes are unpromising little things, smaller than golf balls, and probably introduced to the Florida Keys when the Spanish came in the 1500s. Sweetened condensed milk is used because before the 1930s, the Keys had no fresh milk, no refrigeration, and no ice. Canned sweetened condensed milk had been around since 1856 and was a great boon to dessert-lovers.

“Key to the Highway” is a great blues song. I doubt whether the highway to the Keys is the one the song’s creators had in mind, but that road does lead south–about as far south as one can go in the US.

Crust:

1 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs = 9 whole (rectangular) crackers

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup butter

Mix the crumbs, butter, and sugar with your fingers till it’s all very well blended and looks like damp sand. Press it into your pie pan, working it up the sides with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Use your thumb to make a smooth edge at the top. Bake it for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Let it cool while you make the filling. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees.

You can use a grocery-store graham cracker crust instead—you’ll find them in the aisle with boxed cake mixes.

Filling:

5 egg yolks

1 cup sweetened condensed milk

½ cup lime juice = 4 medium limes

1 teaspoon grated lime rind = 2 limes

Grate the rind before you cut the limes in half to squeeze them. It’s much easier to keep a good grip on a whole lime. Beat the egg yolks till they are light yellow. Add the other ingredients slowly and beat on lower speed just to mix. Pour the mixture into the crust and bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Let it cool while you make the topping. Turn the oven up to 425 degrees.

Meringue topping:

5 egg whites

1 cup sugar

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

Beat the egg whites till they are frothy. Add the sugar and cream of tartar a little at a time, continuing to beat till the whites are very stiff.

Meringue can be a challenge to make. Be sure that your bowl and beaters are perfectly clean and that your egg whites are room temperature. If there are any specks of yolk or shell in the whites, it will be hard to get them stiff and you might have to beat them a very long time. You can pick yolk and shell out with a spoon or the corner of a paper towel.

Cover the pie with the meringue, making sure that it comes all the way to the edges. Otherwise it will shrink while cooking and you will have bare spots. Bake the pie at 425 degrees for 5 to 15 minutes or until the meringue is lightly browned. Oven temperatures vary greatly so keep your eye on things to monitor how brown the pie is getting.

Chill the pie before serving.

Next month: Custard Pie

Can she bake a cherry pie?

Cherry Pie is traditional for February because of Washington’s Birthday, but this month’s pie was inspired by Miles Davis too.

The ancient children’s song, “Billy Boy,” includes a verse that starts with the line, “Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy Billy Boy . . .” (Here’s a link for the song.)  

What’s the Miles Davis connection? Milestones, the 1958 album from Miles’s bebop period, includes an instrumental version of the tune—such a tribute to the playfulness and inventiveness of that art form, to start with a children’s song and improvise it into one of the most out-there tunes ever recorded.

Now . . . a note on the pie itself:

I found the recipe for this crust in an out-of-the-way cookbook. You’ll notice that the proportion of shortening (vegetable shortening and butter) to flour is much greater than the proportion in conventional pie crust. This makes the crust hard to handle, and I ended up with a pie that is not as photogenic as some of my previous ones.

In fact I was going to start over with a new batch of filling and a crust made with the standard two-thirds cup shortening to two cups flour, but my husband and I each had a piece of the pie for dessert. We continued to nibble to the point that I was afraid there would be no pie left to photograph unless I grabbed the camera fast, so I decided to use this crust. It may not be very photogenic, but it is incredibly rich and flaky. 

Crust:

3 cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup vegetable shortening

¾ cup butter, in little pieces

cold water

Sift the flour and salt together into a medium-sized bowl. Cut the shortening and butter in with two knives, scissor fashion, or use a food processor with the normal blades. If you’re using a food processor, return the mixture to the bowl afterwards.

Now add cold water a tablespoon at a time, tossing the mixture with a fork till it starts to cling together. You might need anywhere from three to six tablespoons of water, or more, but don’t add more till you’re sure you need it. You don’t want your dough to become gummy—you just want it to cling together so you can form it into a ball.

With floured hands, knead the dough together but don’t handle it too much. Divide it into two portions, one a bit bigger than the other, and pat them into flat rounds. If you have time, chill them for twenty minutes or so before you try to roll them out.

All the shortening in this recipe makes the dough very fragile and chilling it helps it hold together. Whether you chill or not, you’ll find that you end up with a crust that’s a bit thicker than with a normal pie crust because it’s very hard to roll this rich dough thin without having it fall apart.

Roll out the larger piece of dough and use it to line your pie pan, patting it into place. Trim the edges so you have a half-inch overhang. Add the cherry filling.

Filling:

3 15-ounce cans pitted dark sweet cherries in heavy syrup, drained

¼ cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

Mix together gently before spooning into the bottom crust.

Roll out the smaller piece of dough and lay it over the top of the pie. Trim the edges to match the bottom crust. Press the top and bottom crusts together and tuck the overhanging crust under all the way around.

To make a fancy edge like in the picture, place the index and middle finger of your left hand on the edge pointing out and with half an inch between them. Use the thumb of your right hand to push a little ridge into the dough, working your way all around the edge of the pie doing the same thing. You’ll have better luck getting a nice edge to form if you have chilled your dough before working with it.

Bake the pie at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the crust is golden and looks thoroughly done.

Vanilla ice cream probably isn’t necessary but it’s a great addition.

Coming next month: Key to the Highway Lime Pie

I used the lighter-colored sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Pie is reportedly our new president’s favorite pie, and it’s one of my favorites too.

I first tasted it during the student protests at San Francisco State University when I was a student there in the Sixties. Students were boycotting classes, spending their days marching with picket signs. One day a group of African-American students showed up with a gift of sweet potato turnovers—easier to eat while marching than an actual piece of pie. Those were heady times, and knowing black people as friends was an exotic experience for someone with my sheltered middle-class background. Now with our new president we see a wonderful fruition of Sixties ideals.

Recipes for Sweet Potato Pie often say to use sweet potatoes or yams. But a true yam would be hard to come by in the U.S. The yam is an African staple, totally unrelated to the sweet potato, which is a New World plant.

When I was in Ghana studying percussion some years ago, I had the wonderful experience of watching people from the village plant a yam field, complete with work songs. The yam is such an important foodstuff in some parts of Africa that whole festivals revolve around it.

The U.S. has two varieties of sweet potato, however, one of which more closely resembles certain varieties of the African yam. The lighter-colored sweet potato is just that—a sweet potato, with a starchy potato-like texture. But there’s an orange-brown sweet potato with a moister texture and a sweeter taste. It’s often (mistakenly) referred to as a yam.

Sweet Potato Pie is such a staple of soul food that it’s tempting to suppose Africans transplanted to the U.S. recognized in the sweet potato a vegetable analogous to the yams they had known at home.

Crust:

This is the same crust that we’ve used for some of the other pies.

1 cup sifted flour
1/3 cup shortening
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/6 cup cold water

OR

1-1/4 cup sifted flour
1/3 + 1 heaping tablespoon shortening
1/2 teaspoon + 1 pinch salt
1/6 cup cold water + extra

I’ve discovered that increasing the ingredients slightly makes it easier to roll out a nice piece of dough that fits the pan with no thin spots around the edges.

Sift the dry ingredients together, then cut the shortening in using two knives scissors style. The shortening shouldn’t be completely blended or the crust will be tough. You want bits of shortening, no larger than lentils, to remain because they melt as the crust bakes and make the crust flaky.

Next, sprinkle the water over the flour, salt, shortening mixture and use a fork to toss and blend. Use more water if necessary, but only a little bit at a time. The dough should be moist enough to adhere together in a ball, but not sticky. Form the dough into a flat patty, using plenty of flour on your hands, then roll it out. Use plenty of flour on your rolling surface and rolling pin too. Turn the dough frequently as you roll it out, and sprinkle with more flour, so it doesn’t stick to the rolling surface.

When you’ve shaped it roughly into a circle large enough for your pie pan, fold it into quarters and gently transfer it to the pan, unfolding it and smoothing it to fit. Trim the edges, if necessary, so you have only an extra half inch all around. Now tuck the overhanging crust under. To make a fancy edge like in the picture, place the index and middle finger of one hand on the edge pointing out and with half an inch between them. Use the thumb of the other hand to push a little ridge into the dough, working your way all around the edge of the pie doing the same thing.

And remember that the frozen crusts that come in their own aluminum pans work fine.

Filling:

2 cups cooked sweet potatoes or “yams”
1/2 cup melted butter
2 eggs, separated
1 1/4 cup sugar—but I’ve seen versions that use as little as ½ cup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
3/4 cup sour cream

When I make this pie, I cook the sweet potatoes by baking rather than boiling. They can end up with too much moisture in them if you boil them and then your pie won’t set up nicely. I start with two large sweet potatoes and have more than enough. The amount of time you bake them depends on the size, but allow at least an hour at 400 degrees—be sure to poke the tops in several places with a fork or sharp knife. Otherwise they will explode in the oven and you’ll have a huge mess. Don’t poke the bottoms though or sweet juice will leak out and burn in your oven, also making a huge mess.

Scrape the cooked potato out of the shells, measure out 2 cups, and mash it thoroughly. Combine it with the butter, egg yolks, 1 cup of the sugar, the salt and spices, and the sour cream, blending very well. I use my electric mixer for this step.

Beat the egg whites slightly, add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and continue beating till they are stiff. Fold them into the sweet potato combination and pour it all into your unbaked pie shell. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake 30 more minutes, or until the edge is nicely browned but not burned and the filling does not wobble. You can also pat the top to make sure the filling has set up.

I serve it with slightly sweetened whipped cream.

Next month: A cherry pie inspired by a Miles Davis tune, and maybe George Washington too.

Ma Rainey’s Black-Bottom Pie

The rock and roll of the 1950’s wasn’t the first example of African-American music and dance influencing mainstream culture. When young people scandalized their parents by dancing the Charleston and the Black Bottom in the 1920’s, they were borrowing both the moves and the music from Black people. The Black Bottom eventually became even more popular than the Charleston. It inspired Jelly Roll Morton’s “Black Bottom Stomp” and Ma Rainey’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” which in turn inspired August Wilson’s play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Ma Rainey, whose given name was Gertrude, lived from 1886 to 1939. She was one of the first professional blues singers and one of the first to record her work.

Black-Bottom Pie, probably named after the dance, is a two-layer pie, three if you count the whipped cream. It dates from an era before ice-cream was as cheap and readily available as it is now. People had to satisfy their cravings for cold, sweet, creamy things by eating puddings and custards. Essentially this is a custard pie, with chocolate added to half the custard to form the “black bottom.”

Crust:

This pie has a crumb crust, analogous to the graham-cracker crust we used for the Mississippi Banana Cream Pie. But instead of graham crackers, it uses what the old-fashioned recipes call “chocolate wafers.” I made a diligent search for chocolate wafers, but they seem to have been crowded off modern supermarket shelves by much more elaborate and caloric cookies.

A moist chocolate cookie won’t work for this recipe, as I discovered by trying to substitute Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies for chocolate wafers. The cookie has to be as dry as a graham cracker, but chocolate. When I discovered that Oreo makes a ready-made chocolate-crumb crust that sits right next to the ready-made graham-cracker crusts in the cake-mix aisle, I realized that if I was determined to make a chocolate-crumb crust from scratch, I should just start with Oreos. So that’s what I did. But even so, it’s very hard to produce a crust that holds up well when the pie is sliced, so unless you are a determined purist, I recommend the ready-made crust.

If you want to make your own . . .

30 whole Oreos, opened up and with the frosting removed.

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1/4 cup sugar

Use your food processor to reduce the Oreo halves, of which you will have 60, to fine crumbs. Mix the crumbs, butter, and sugar in a small bowl. Turn the result out into a pie pan and use a spoon to press it firmly to the bottom and sides, holding your thumb along the top to create a nice edge as you work on the sides. It’s important to press down very firmly with the spoon if you want your pie to cut into tidy slices.

Bake the crust at 350 degrees for 10 minutes and let it cool while you prepare the filling.

Filling:

1 1/2 cups milk

1 envelope gelatin

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

4 egg yolks

3 egg whites

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate (generally comes in 1/2 oz. pieces)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon rum

1/2 cup whipping cream

Put the milk in a saucepan, add the gelatin, and let it sit for a few minutes. Add the sugar, salt, and yolks and blend thoroughly. I used a wire whisk. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring with a spoon, until it gets thick (about like a thick cream soup), but don’t let it boil. It is now custard.

Divide the custard between two bowls, one large enough to later accommodate three beaten egg whites too. Melt 1 1/2 oz. of the chocolate and add it to the custard in the smaller bowl, along with the vanilla. Mix well. Add the rum to the custard in the larger bowl. Mix well. Chill both bowls 45 minutes to an hour. The custard should now form a small mound if you scoop up a spoonful and deposit it back in the bowl it came from.

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff and fold them into the custard in the larger bowl. Note that these egg whites will be essentially raw in your finished pie. This is an old-fashioned recipe and back then people worried less about raw egg whites than they do now.

Turn the chocolate custard into the pie pan containing the crumb crust and smooth it out nicely. Add the custard-egg white mixture and smooth it over the chocolate layer.

Whip the cream and smooth it over the top of the whole thing. Chop or grate the remaining 1/2 oz. of chocolate and sprinkle it attractively on top of your pie.

Refrigerate the pie until you are ready to eat it, at least an hour, and be sure to store the leftovers in the refrigerator.

Next month: Sweet Potato Pie

I’m the proud owner–and player–of several Strats, but female electric guitarists are such a rarity that when it came time to create my heroine in Sweet Man Is Gone, I went with the stereotype and made her a singer.

But why is the chick always the singer, never the lead guitarist?  I’ve decided it’s rooted in profound differences between men and women–a topic for the sociobiologists.  But I’m going to take a stab at it.

Most people who play the electric guitar start in their teens.  The electric guitar has everything to recommend it to teenage boys and almost nothing to recommend it to teenage girls. And by the time the teen years are past, it’s hard to catch up.  I started playing as an adult.  I’ve now been at it for fifteen years and play like a fair-to-middling teenage boy.

Guys love gear and girls don’t.  Girls are put off by an instrument that seems to require a mastery of electronics.

Playing the electric guitar requires physical exertion, speed, dexterity, and endurance—the very qualities teenage boys would cultivate whether electric guitars existed or not.

Most styles played on the electric guitar require loads of time to master, much of it spent in solitude.  It’s a stereotype that women talk more than men and depend on verbal interaction to relate to those around them.  But stereotypes are based on fact.  I’m not sure most women can cut themselves off from society and devote themselves to hours and hours of practice the way guys do.  And women who are introspective loners are more likely to spend their time reading–immersing themselves in words rather than sounds.  That’s certainly what I did as a teenager.

And finally, most styles played on the electric guitar stem ultimately from the blues.  The archetypal blues guitarist is male.  His persona is that of a virile seducer who can get any woman he wants, a virtuosic player who can outplay any other guitarist.  I had a lot of tongue-in-cheek fun with that in Sweet Man Is Gone.

But it’s significant that males start playing the guitar at puberty.  It’s a great way to celebrate their developing manhood, and the competitive factor dovetails nicely with the way teenage boys interact with their peers.  They compete with each other in everything, and they admire the guys who star—whether at skateboarding, on the football field, or in the band.

Peggy Ehrhart is a former English professor who now writes mysteries and plays blues guitar.  She is the author of Sweet Man Is Gone, featuring sexy blues-singer sleuth Maxx Maxwell, and published by Five Star/Gale/Cengage.  Visit her at www.PeggyEhrhart.com .  This first appeared in Cats and Crime and Rock and Roll–August 27, 2008.