Tag: pop tarts

American Hollow-Day

Last Friday was a hugely important day in America! It was so hugely important I couldn’t sleep the night before! I got up twice hoping it was already morning. I stared at the numbers on the bedside clock, willing them to go faster. Finally, when dawn’s early light beckoned, I leaped out of bed like a child on Christmas, dashed down the hall, and stepped into the laundry room. I was brimming with anticipation!  And there, standing patiently in the corner, tightly furled since last Independence Day: our American flag.  Quick as a mouse, I ran her out to the front deck and hoisted her in the most prominent place I could find. Then I took a few steps back and placed my hand over my heart.  To no one in particular I exclaimed, “Happy Flag Day!”

Poor Flag Day – she’s an underappreciated holiday.  She comes and goes with no more fanfare than pre-printed words on the June 14 square of a wall calendar.  She doesn’t even rate a Hallmark card.  She yearns to be a real holiday like those ten federal ones.   She wants to believe the events of my first paragraph actually happened.  But let’s get real.  In our house, the only excitement last Friday was knowing the weekend was at hand.  I slept without interruption the night before.  I didn’t get up at dawn.  And our flag remained furled in the corner of the laundry room, knowing its only chance to see the light of day would be July 4th.

Which is all to say, I’m missing the point of Flag Day, at least in this country.  Wikipedia devotes two tiny paragraphs to its Flag Day article, beginning with the words, “A flag day is a flag-related holiday…” (promising start, no?)  But at least they go on to say, “…a day designated for flying a certain flag…”, and, “…a day set aside to celebrate a nation’s adoption of its flag.”  Here in America, we do neither on June 14th.

Apologies to Troy, NY (whose Flag Day parades draws 50,000+ spectators) and Waubeka, WI (which claims to be the founding city of Flag Day and also has a parade).  The residents of those towns surely had a “banner celebration” last Friday.  The employees of the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia probably took the day off as well.  But for the rest of us, it was just another June 14th, conspicuously calendared halfway between big-boy holidays “Memorial” and “Independence”.

Don’t get me wrong – I think America’s flag is supremely appreciated.  She flies above any government facility, sports stadium, or other big-time gathering in our country, and she always gets the highest position on the pole (except you, Texas).  She shows up on a billion first-class postage stamps.  She’s decorates the top of Mt. Everest and the moon.  And on Independence Day, she’ll be raised more times than any other day.  Which makes Flag Day seem, well, redundant, doesn’t it?

         

If we’re to truly embrace this overlooked holiday in America, I suggest the following from now on: 1) Your June 14th breakfast must contain some combination of red, white, and blue foods (i.e. cherries, blueberries, Pop-Tarts in a pinch).  2) Your June 14th outfit must contain the colors of the American flag (or at least one of those classy little lapel pins).  3) Unfurl and raise the flag at your house or place of business – and won’t it be cool to add “unfurl” to your vocabulary for a day?  4) Hail a cab or a friend, so you can say you “flagged them down”.  Actually, disregard that last one.

I’ll grant one exception to my efforts to boost the significance of Flag Day.  If you happen to live on a flag lot, you don’t have to do anything at all.  You’re celebrating by default!  But you might consider coloring your property appropriately.  Wouldn’t that cause a stir in the plane flying overhead?

Look forward, not back.  Independence Day is only two weeks from today.  Dust off your flag after all.

Any Way You Slice It

Labor Day is right around the corner, but I call your attention to a couple of tastier holidays this time of year. Last Thursday was Peach Pie Day and a month henceforth will be Strawberry Cream Pie Day.  October will usher in Pumpkin Pie Day, as well as Boston Cream Pie Day.  In November, we’ll celebrate Bavarian Cream Pie Day.  Next May we’ll celebrate Apple Pie Day (and that one should be designated an American holiday).

These pie-eyed celebration days come and go with little more than crumbs for fanfare, but any attention to pie is a good thing in my book.  Whether sweet or savory, fruit or cream, single or double-crust, bite-size (“cutie pies”?) or multiple-serving-size; you can never have too many fingers in pie.

Pie is literally a part of my DNA.  My grandmother used to make delicious Cornish pasties, those hearty beef stew pocket-pies favored by generations of coal miners, each containing an entire meal within their flaky golden-brown crust.  My mother raised my brothers and I on the fruit pies her own mother taught her to make.  My favorites were cherry, peach, and mince; piping hot and a la mode (or in the case of mince, “a la hard sauce”).  I can still picture my mother adorning her creations with strips of dough – elegant top-crust latticework too pretty to consume.  She made it look easy as pie.

They say the signature of a great pie is its crust – ironic because history says pie crust was never meant to be eaten.  With the advent of flour in ancient Roman times, pie crust served a practical purpose: to contain and preserve the food within, especially for a soldier or sailor or some other kind of several-days traveler.  It wasn’t until bakers turned their attention to the crust when “real pie” was born.  Can you imagine the first time someone tasted a savory buttery crust, melded with hot fruit filling, cooled by the freshness of vanilla ice cream?  The whole is clearly greater than the sum of its parts.

   Royer’s Round Top Cafe, Texas

Any Texans reading this post will likely direct me to the Hill Country in the southeast, to little Marble Falls or tiny Round Top.  Both towns boast of serving “the best pies in the Lone Star State”, be that the Blue Bonnet Cafe in the former or Royer’s Cafe in the latter.  Blue Bonnet has a “Pie Happy Hour” and a regionally-renowned German Chocolate Pie.  (My favorite cake as a pie?  Sounds like a slice of heaven.)  Royer’s has something called a “Texas Trash Pie” (pretzels, graham crackers and coconut) and I can get one with a few clicks of my mouse.  Don’t tempt me.

No nod to pie would be complete without saluting Hostess Fruit Pies and Kellogg’s Pop Tarts – staples of the American childhood.  Hostess enticed you with those colorful wrappers and the promise of “real fruit filling” (though my favorite was actually the chocolate).  No matter the flavor, you consumed a brick’s worth of glazed sugar, chewy crust, and gooey fruit filling.  It’s a wonder we didn’t sink to the bottom of our swimming pools and bathtubs.

    

Kellogg’s Pop Tarts were svelte by comparison; a deck of large playing cards.  My mother favored the non-frosted fruit variety to keep our pantry “healthy”, but she snuck the brown-sugar cinnamon tarts into the basket too.  I ate hundreds of those.  Someone needs to invent a brown-sugar cinnamon pie.

Any Hollywood-types reading this post would remind me the ultimate pie movie is “Waitress” (now a Broadway musical), or “Michael”, where in one glorious scene Andie McDowell surveys a table’s worth of pie and gleefully sings, “Pie, pie, me-oh-my, I love pie!”

Thanks to a new local restaurant, I don’t have to travel to Texas to find amazing pie.  3.14 Sweet & Savory Pi Bar is as inclusive as it sounds.  Choose from a dozen or more “Pot Pi’s” for your entree (my favorite is the Irish-stew-inspired “Guinness Sakes”); then sprint to dessert by choosing from over twenty temptations (hello “Blueberry Fields Forever” Pi).

For the record, cake gets its share of celebrations as well.  Last Wednesday was “Sponge Cake Day” and November 26th is “National Cake Day”.  For me, those days will come and go like any other.  Those who celebrate cake should eat some humble pie and admit which dessert deserves the higher praise.  But hey, no time to debate; a chicken pot pie is in the oven and calling my name.