"Your Mother is a Pillsbury Impostor"

     Upon request, I was told I had to blog about this story. I am going to attempt to do this with no names, so in a court of law we are free and clean, and also to protect a secret that my friend and I agreed that night to take to our graves. If the woman in this story ever reads this blog, we sincerely apologize. Let me begin.

     At the time this story takes place, I was still working at the restaurant. (Sorry, no names.) 4th of July was approaching and one of the women who used to work at the restaurant was having a huge 4th of July party and needed about 20 of her mother's homemade pies. 10 apple and 10 cherry. She asked my friend who I worked at the restaurant with if she would be in charge of the pies for her party and I soon after got asked by my friend to help make them. Keep in mind, the woman we were about to bake pies for married rich, lives in a beautiful home and over time has become very picky and her values have gotten slightly skewed. The last two people who attempted to make her mother's pies were fired in a fit of disgust, so this is what we were up against. But my friend and I knew that regardless of the outcome, we were going to have the industrial kitchen, 3 bottles of wine and a night full of fun all to ourselves. A little background to the story to keep in mind. My friend was leaving town the next morning at 7:30AM on a flight out of Los Angeles.

     The restaurant was slowly emptying out that infamous night that we were going to make the pies. We figured we were going to start around 10:30/11:00.....well.....the owner decided he wanted to kick back with a couple bottles of wine and by the time we got everyone out of there we didn't get started until about 12:30AM. So my friend and I hit the kitchen, thought it would be fun to put on the chef coats.....chef pants....and really make it official. We even made chef hats out of napkins. This was followed by a brief flour fight to really sell the idea that we were professional chefs. We toasted with some wine, the night was still young.....we had PLENTY of time. Another woman who will remain nameless was in charge of getting the ingredients from the mother's world famous pie recipe. The ingredients were laid out on the counter for us and it was time to start dividing up the tasks to keep this running smoothly. I took note very quickly that the recipe had called for Crisco.....plain lard.....for the crust. The woman had bought BUTTERED Crisco instead and I started wondering if this was going to be a problem. Thinking back to baking with my mother, I knew there was a difference but wasn't sure if it would pose a problem. This is when the first sign of urgency set in. Upon looking at the watch we realized it was already 1:30AM. My friend went into a slight panic as she had to be on her way to the airport in about 4 hours and we didn't even have a ball of dough yet, so time started to become "of the essence". (Slight panic for my friend is normal and over the years I've learned how to see her through it.) So we threw caution to the wind and started cranking out the batch of pie dough.

      I was in charge of the dough and my friend was in charge of cooking the fillings. Cherries were bubbling in a sweet mix on the stove top and the apples right beside simmering in cinnamon, sugar and butter. I got the dough mixed and started stretching it over our first pie tin, noticing that the dough was not very pliable I started to get nervous. "Come on" I told myself, "this recipe is famous. Maybe this is how its suppose to be." So I kept working the dough and after about 10 minutes.....it KIND OF looked like a pie. We ran a test run with a single pie, put it in the oven, let it bake and when the timer buzzed my friend and I looked at each other, took a deep breath and opened the oven door. The pie.....looked horrendous. The dough shrank and shriveled, the lattice work on top was broken and crumbled..... much like our hopes for a quick successful night of pie making. Now its about 2:30AM and hysteria set in. There may or may not have been tears, there was definitely concern for a 7:30AM flight and obviously some decisions had to be made. My friend looked at me and said, "JOSH! What are we going to do? We can't give her 20 pies if they are going to look like this! We are screwed! SCREWED! I'm gonna lose it! She is going to be so pissed! We are gonna get FIRED!" Knowing that I had to stop Churnobyle from melting down again I thought quick and calculated all of our options in about 5 seconds. I grabbed my friend and said, "Outback! Now! Pull it together! I have a plan!"

     Realizing that if we didn't do what we were about to do we risked a few things. 1.) My friend would NOT make her flight. 2.) We turn in pies that would make us and everyone involved look really bad and unprofessional. So it was decided.....we were going to the 24 hour grocery store to buy pre-made pie crust. Picture this: It's 3:15AM (still no pies....still no dough.....) my friend and I in our chef coats, chef pants and napkin hats.....flour on our face in a brisk walk around the store in search of the baking aisle. The dough was hard to find at first so my friend contemplated using tortillas as pie crust. I knew she was losing it....and quickly too. Something had to be done. So quickly I found a store supervisor and inquired where we could find the pre-made pie crusts. He looked at us and said, "Aren't you guys professional chefs?" To which I said, "Really? I have a napkin on my head....we were ROLE PLAYING! WHERE'S THE DOUGH?!" We completely wiped the store out of pie crusts and headed back to our very own Kitchen Nightmare.

     We got back, cranked the heat on high to reheat the fillings on the stove and ripped package after package of dough. Stretching, slicing and weaving the dough to make her mother's raved about lattice pattern on top, we were making great progress. "Do you smell something?"....."The CHERRIES!" As if we didn't feel like Lucy and Ethel enough at this point, we now had to sift through burnt cherries and hope to God we had enough to fill 10 pies. They weren't as filled as we wanted them to be but at this point we didn't have time to haggle over minutia. 5:00AM, pies are in the oven and my pride as a chef is completely in the shitter. We cleaned from top to bottom while the pies baked. Left no remnants of pre-made ANYTHING. Nobody could find out the truth behind our Impostor Pies. We even went so far as to take all of the Pillsbury boxes and wrappers in a trash bag and use an off site dumpster and bury the evidence far at the bottom. We were going to make it through this.....hopefully.

     The pies were done and looked beautiful and we started regaining a dash of hope that this might actually work. Then reality set in. This woman FIRED someone from doing her a favor because the pies didn't taste like her mother's. We really started to worry that she was gonna call our bluff and we were gonna be in for it. Now....I didn't really know this woman....so I didn't care what she thought. I told my friend, "Listen, this is the best we could do. At least she will HAVE pies and we hope for the best. If we get found out, we come clean, apologize and tell her we wanted to at LEAST have something to pass at her party. We really had no other choice."

     Concluding this saga, I will wrap this up as quick as I can. My friend made it to her flight, I literally dropped her off at the airport as they were boarding. Her and I were in touch via phone over the course of the next few days wondering what the outcome of our Pie Debacle was going to be. Well let me tell you.....that woman Rrrrrrrrraved about our pies. " You got my mother's recipe to a T," she said, "No one BUT my mother has ever gotten the pies to taste just like her homemade recipe. You guys did such a great job!" (Your mother.......is a LIAR! Secret recipe my ASS!) You can't tell me she was slaving away in a kitchen making dough. We figured her out. She was passing Pillsbury off and sipping Margaritas in the back while everyone thought she was slaving away over pie crust. Do you know to this day...my friend and I get hired every year to make this woman pies? But now....things run smooth. Of course the question crossed our minds...."Do we.....ya know....follow her recipe or do we......" Oh we follow her recipe alright. We high tail it to the store, wipe them clean of Pillsbury and crank out pies like Marie Callender. Then we toast with a Margarita while the lies bake in the oven.....I'm sorry....the pies.