Proving That You Can't Judge a Book (or Pie) By It's Cover

" Eat dessert first, so you'll be sure to have room for it"

~ Mildred Rowe

While planning our recent getaway to Virginia, I noticed a restaurant that sounded familiar to me.  When I started to read about the down home cooking and home baked pies that were offered there, I remembered why it rang a bell.

Sure enough it was the same place I had read about in this cookbook recently purchased at the thrift shop.

As long as we were in the area, we made it a point to have lunch at Mrs. Rowe's Family Restaurant.  We also made it a point to save enough room for a piece of pie.  As my husband was eating his slice of lemon meringue he told me about how he used to help his great Aunt Mabel make them when he was a little boy.  His job was to whip the egg whites into that fluffy meringue.  After finishing the pie at Mrs. Rowe's, he said it was one of the best pieces he'd ever tasted.

Lemon meringue pie is something I'd never attempted before.  But when I saw that Mrs. Rowe's delicious recipe was included in the cookbook I thought it was time to give it a try. 

I followed the recipe closely and found an unexpected surprise near the end.

While the recipe said to bake for 30 minutes, it didn't say what temperature to bake it at.  I read and re-read and nope, that little piece of information was missing.  After consulting another recipe for lemon meringue pie, I settled on 325 degrees and cautiously watched it to make sure it wouldn't burn.

Fresh from the oven it was looking good.

I asked Brett to critique the meringue.

Because I chose the "weepless" recipe for meringue, I knew it wasn't going to be as fluffy as some meringues.  Knowing that humidity is the enemy of meringue and we have a preponderance of humidity at the moment, I though this was the best choice. 

The resident meringue critiquer pronounced the meringue looked as it should.  Nice and lightly browned.

The recipe said to allow it to cool and then serve at room temperature or chilled.

As we ate dinner, the pie was cooling.

When the time came to serve this long anticipated pie, we put our forks away and had to decide which of the following would work best:

It seems a better name for my pie might be "Lake Lemon Meringue Pie".  The meringue and crust were fine and the flavor of the lemon filling was excellent, but shall we say it was a bit ... runny. 

The guys in my family didn't seem to mind and practically inhaled their pieces. 

In the end, if life gives you lemons, I think I'd stick with the lemonade.