The good, the sad, and the ex-mullet.

Remember this picture of last week? Well, the Hubster has capitulated. Despite his insistence that he's growing a mullet, he went in for a trim.



Well, it was more like a shearing. There was less on the ground at the National Sheep Shearing Competition, let me tell you. The barber charged him extra for clogging his trimmers. Or whatever you call those machines. He had to send for farming equipment. I'm having it dipped, then weaving it into wool thread so I can knit him an Aran sweater. Snort.

Anyway, thanks for your patience and support this week. I don't want to write too much about the death/funeral/wake/happenings last weekend out of respect for the family, who are still grieving (obviously), but I will say one thing. Even the best of friends find it hard to know how to comfort one another when they're going through a time of bereavement. All you can do is show up and say, "I'll be sitting here behind you when you're ready for me. And in the meantime, I'll bring food and buy the milk." So that's what we did--we made food.

We took this pie (remember?) to a dinner party once where our friends ate it and liked it.



So we baked a lasagna and two more of these for the family of the deceased, our dear friends, so they wouldn't have to think about feeding themselves with so much else on their minds. Turns out the entire Republic of Ireland had the same idea, so our food just joined a pile of provisions that could have fed the Hurricane Katrina refugees in the Astrodome for at least a month. We saw our friends again last night, and they said, "Oh, thank you for the pie, by the way. The second we saw it we knew you had baked it! I think it's becoming, like, your signature dish!"

Hearing that made me feel warm inside, kind of like the accomplishment a little kid feels. Inside, I was going, "I HELPED! I HELPED! I HELPED!" The feeling that we didn't have to say anything, at all, and they still saw by a reheated apple pie that we had been there meant a lot to me.

Meant a lot to me? To me? How self-absorbed am I?

Plus, they said I had a "signature dish"! What better/more undeserved praise can a mediocre cook get?

If that's not the perfect advertisement for this pie, I don't know what is. Even though it's not my recipe, I'm going to call it The Good Karma Pie. Comfort for the eater, self-satisfaction for the baker.

Recipe here!
Pioneer Woman's Scrumptious Apple Pie Recipe