When I was younger I didn’t like tomatoes, except in the most processed forms (pasta sauce, pizza etc). Since then I’ve grown to really enjoy tomatoes, and like cooking with them. Sadly, I rarely am afforded the opportunity as my best friend has a tomato-intolerance. Since she can’t eat them, we don’t keep them around and my tomato-intake is greatly diminished. (I have considered ending our friendship over this, but she puts up with my eggplant-intolerance, so I guess I can’t).
Once upon a time, there was a princess who decided that she would spurn her worldly goods and go out into the woods to get closer to nature, discover who she was, and maybe have some fun. She walked for hundreds of miles: up hill and down dale, traversing mountains, dancing through flowers, scrambling over boulders, fording rivers, and contending with fierce chipmunks. Along the way she saw gorgeous sights, met fabulous people, strengthened her spirit, and only got lost once.
Unfortunately, not all was rhododendrons and sunshine. It rained, and sometimes snowed, her feet were bruised by rocks, her legs scratched by brambles, and she caught a sickness that has nothing to do with green citrus. And always there was the problem of what to eat. Her adventuring left her famished, but the only kind of cooking she could do was boiling water to re-hydrate food, and she ate the same things week after week. She began to despair that she would forget real food. Then one day her fairy pie-mother visited and brought her a delicious pie.
It was a magical cherry pie that brought up the princess’s spirits, and was also incredibly flaky and the perfect combination of tart and sweet. When the princess returned to her kingdom it was with a renewed desire to cook and eat wonderful food. She began by making all of her favorite things, and then continued cooking, trying out new recipes and flavor combinations. In the midst of a baking spree she decided that sharing the food with her kingdom was not enough, she wanted to tell the tasty tales of how the food came about. And so, with the help of the gallant knight Sir Manly de Muppet, she developed a wondrous recipe blog. And they all lived deliciously ever after.
Pie in the Woods 