The "Hands Down" Pie

I am not the least inclined to cooking. I don't like the time it takes. I don't like the dishes that it creates. I don't like the way it never tastes or looks as good as it did in the pictures or stores. My favorite meal is the one I don't cook or clean up after (though our budget does not allow enough elbow-room to even joke at this as a possibility). I'm sure that seems shallow or lazy, but I take comfort that 75% of the people I've ever known feel the same way as me. I also take comfort in my father-in-law who is situated among the other 25%.
My father-in-law loves to try new recipes. He'll spend hours making something he's never even heard of before and then again hours in cleaning up the resulting dishes. I appreciate people like him who enjoy cooking because these people usually love sharing their results and Sunday it resulted in my enjoying a delicious, completely homemade chicken cordon bleu dinner. It was awesome and I was so glad that he loves cooking as much as he does. I, so as not to seem too much of a mooch, provided dessert. Lindsay and I provided dessert. I made it, but it was at her directions that I made a second attempt at banana cream pie. The result was a text from my father-in-law later that night claiming it was "hands down the best banana cream pie" he'd ever had.
From a man who loves his food and is so given to cooking and experimenting, that was quite a compliment. I still can't claim I enjoyed too thoroughly the process of making the pie, but I did so very much enjoy the post-pie analysis of why it was so good—especially because it was really good and much better than the first one I'd made only a week earlier.
After some discussion between Lindsay and myself, here's what we determined (these are important notes for improving pies in the future).
1. Most important was the custard. The deliciousness of the custard portion of the pie really added to the taste. I think it was the biggest difference/improvement.
2. Don't mix in the bananas. First of all, bananas like to brown, and that's just bad press for people to bite into your pie and find brown bananas. The pie is supposed to be yellowish after all, so the brown spoils the appearance and could spoil others appetites. Second, bananas love to share their love, by which I mean everything ultimately ends up tasting like bananas when exposed. —Bananas in the fridge = a fridge full of banana smelling/tasting things. Also any one who's ever left a banana peel in a room know how fast that smell takes over. —Well, if you mix the banana into the custard, or put them on the bottom of the pie, ultimately you end up with an entire pie that tastes more like banana than banana and cream (this is only avoidable if the pie is eaten immediately after you mix the ingredients, but because the custard has to chill in the crust too, this is nearly impossible).
3. Before serving chill bananas by placing whole bananas in the fridge. In this way you chill the bananas to the same temperature as the pie, then you can slice them on to the top of the pie just before serving avoiding any browning or flavor imbibing.
4. Finally, Lindsay had the idea of slicing up strawberries too, because there're always all kinds of things flavored strawberry banana.
The result of all this was the "hands down" pie that we've eaten two of since Sunday, and it's only Thursday. Try it out, and never be reserved about how much vanilla you use in everything.
May 12.2011

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