Actually the full name of this blog is “The Great Lemon Meringue Pie Bake-off.” For the whole world to know, Saturday was my 66th birthday. Over the years my lovely wife, Judy, has been in the habit of creating my special favorite desert for me. A “Lemon Meringue Pie.” This year, perhaps in honor of the double six birthday, both my lovely wife, Judy, and my equally lovely daughter, Renee, created a lemon meringue pie to celebrate the day. Judy, to produce her classic recipe with the usual half dozen modifications to accommodate the locally available resources, and Renee reviewed her favorite cooking channel chef to create her masterpiece. Now is this a win-win situation or what?

The story goes back even further than this, however. Once, long ago, a young engineer and his friend, Eugene Frost, “Frosty,” were in the habit of playing a ‘friendly’ game of chess during the course of a month at our work in the paper mill. The game board was a 3 x 5 file card with the chess board layout and boxes to record moves. The rule was at least one move per day by each player. You drew in the pieces with pencil. To make a move you erased a piece and drew it in it’s new position and wrote the move in the next box in chess notation. For example the knight could be moved N-KB3, (Knight to King Bishop row 3.) You would erase the “N” in square KN1 and draw it in at KB3. It would take us two to three weeks to play a game that way. At the end of the game the prize was always the same. The looser had to provide the winner with a slice of lemon meringue pie. I mean we both won because even the looser got to eat of the spoils, right! So perhaps once every month or six weeks one of us would have to go home and beg our wives, Judy or Jo, to bake us a lemon meringue pie to pay off our debt. Now Frosty and I were careful not to win too many games in a row, but I guess Judy and Jo compared notes at a company picnic and we got busted.

I don’t remember for sure, but I think that is when the lemon meringue pie became associated with this one annual event.

Now Neil and I carefully studied the two pies and did comparative taste tests. In the end we declared both pies “blue ribbon winners.”

We are waiting out the rainy weather here in Hillsboro Oregon. Judy will be having some more dental surgery in another week. Meanwhile, “grand daughters spoiled while you wait,” is the order of the day.

Gary and Judy