Here's the only picture I've taken today. I sent it to a friend with whom I trade recipes and food talk and other magical things.
"An obvious favorite," I wrote her.
I had plucked the card from my recipe file as I was indeed making a key lime pie and yes, I've made enough of them over the years to know it by heart but I often check with the source to make sure that I'm doing it right. I did not make a pie shell, however. I have long since switched over to a graham cracker crust which has now become the default for all key lime pies and no one makes a merengue any more, but only uses whipped cream but I have no whipped cream and since you use egg yolks, why not use the whites to make the merengue? And so that is what I did.
I made the pie in tribute to the mahi-mahi Mr. Moon caught this weekend which I shall also cook tonight. A very long time ago, probably in 1986, he and I traveled to Key West with Baby Lily where we met up with my mother and stayed for some days in a nice little motel with a kitchen. Mother had just gotten a divorce and was feeling good about herself and so relieved to have that sick, evil 240 pound weight off her back and we actually enjoyed each others's company so much. I partially attribute that to the fact that every early evening we would put Lily in her stroller and walk to a little bar where we all had pina coladas (except for Lily, poor thing), even my mother who was an absolutely staunch non-drinker, and by golly, we all got just tipsy enough to laugh and be at ease while we watched the sunset.
I think about this and wonder if Mother and I might have been closer if she'd had a few more drinks in her life.
Sigh.
While we were there, my husband went on a fishing trip one day and he caught a mahi-mahi and brought it back to the motel where there was a little tiny kitchenette and I cooked that fish and we had a loaf of bread that we'd gotten from a bakery and that was what we had for supper. Fish, bread, butter. It was the best fish dinner ever. To make it even more perfect, Glen went to the restaurant next door and bought three pieces of key lime pie and we ate those for our dessert and when we talk about the best meals we've ever eaten, that one is right at the top. So this morning I made up the dough for a loaf of sourdough and I made the pie and in a little while, either I'll cook the fish or Mr. Moon will grill it. I think I'll probably screw everything up by also making a little avocado salad but no matter what, this supper can only be a tribute to that long-ago Key West meal which lives in our memories with such fondness. We were so young, so beautiful, and my mother had a good time and Lily took her first steps (at nine months!) in another restaurant there with the whole staff cheering her on.
That was also the trip where I got to shake Matt Guitar Murphy's hand.
It was a very good time.
I feel a little time-trippy lately. Perhaps it's because I have a birthday coming up but who knows? I dreamed of Roseland last night and I keep having visual flashbacks to different moments of my life there and in Cozumel and in Winter Haven where I lived from the age of 12 to 18. Also of different places I've lived in Tallahassee which have ranged from literal shacks with no plumbing or running water to a huge and gorgeous house where we had a swimming pool that sparkled turquoise under the great bowl of sky the house was set under. We've been watching the Netflix docu-series, "How To Change Your Mind" based on the book by Michael Pollan of the same name and I have a sort of itchy yearning to do mushrooms one more time.
There is so much evidence that psilocybin is a key to parts of the mind that are eternally aware of the most profound truth which is that everything is connected, including us, and that if we strip away all that we know as "ourselves" we are able to actually know that in the most primal and truthful way. As Ram Dass said, "All is one." The experience of taking this mystical journey opens us to that in a way that brings great relief to those who may have a terminal illness, to those who have battled depression, anxiety, OCD, addiction and on and on and on.
You know I am not woo-woo. I'm just not. BUT, I have been privileged to ingest not only psilocybin but also LSD, mescaline, and possibly MDA. I may have even told the story before of the first time I ever did mushrooms in which a friend dosed me unknowingly and it was a most wonderful experience and I will be eternally grateful for his intervention in my psyche which was desperate for guidance.
(Rest in peace, B-Boy, I say. To which he would probably reply, "Bite me, I wish I was still alive," and then he would hug me and that would be beautiful.)
The thing is, I am surrounded by cow fields where the psilocybin mushrooms grow freely and abundantly. When I was young, we had no compulsion about stepping over a fence and going hunting but now I am older and far less intrepid (not to mention physically able) to trespass even though my intentions are pure. I am completely certain that I could identify them still. They grow directly out of cow shit, have a top like a toasted marshmallow, a ring around the stem and- most definitively of all- bleed purple.
Plucked and eaten in the field was always my preference and I never once got in the least bit sick nor did I ever have what the media so loved to call a "bad trip".
In the docu-series, most of the portrayals of trips occur in clinical settings, albeit ones with trained, kind, and experienced "guides" and lots of choices of soothing music. I cannot imagine, though, tripping on a hospital bed in a building where medical things go on. I have always been a free-ranger, I suppose, when it comes to tripping, being mostly at home where I am in control of my environment, where I can step outside if I want, to breathe and bask in trees and plants and all sorts of nature.
Well, this is something I am pondering as I am about to turn sixty-eight.
And now let me point out that Mick Jagger will turn 79 in two days and that he and the other old boys played last night to 100,000 Parisians and apparently left the crowd satisfied, sated, and replete. It is one thing for a beloved old band to do a reunion tour which is entirely based on those who loved them way back when. It is another for a group to draw sold-out crowds who consist of four generations of fans after sixty years of never...really...stopping.
Time to go bake the bread. Mr. Moon is considering grilling the mahi outside. The key lime pie is in the refrigerator, hopefully chilling to some sort of perfection.
Darla is still alive.
Love...Ms. Moon
Hard for me to concentrate after you first mentioned key lime pie. What a life you've led, full of experiences. And how you enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI am grateful for many of my experiences and others, not so much. But they make up who we are, don't they?
DeleteI, too, made a key lime pie today. But we're having a pickup Marco's Pizza. I'd much prefer the fish. Maybe my husband and I will go looking for the purple 'shrooms again before we die-or maybe one more LSD experience. I think it'd surely be good for us.
ReplyDeleteI think that having a new reset on how we approach our older years might be a damn good thing. Not for everyone! But perhaps for some of us.
Deletememories of life.......and food......and love. That is what it's all about
ReplyDeleteSusan M
So true.
DeleteThis makes me smile. You know, I've always been proud of being older than Mick, but that's all I have to brag on. He's quite a performer. Like Darla. She has more heart than all of us.
ReplyDeleteThose old Stones boys. They are one of a kind, aren't they?
DeleteI thought Key Lime pie was named after the Keys but now I see your recipe calls for key limes! How do they differ from normal limes, I wonder.
ReplyDeleteI was never game to partake of anything other than a bit of weed when I was young. Lately I find myself wondering if I should obtain some and make some brownies. I wouldn't smoke again - the mere thought makes me cough. Would that I had the courage to try 'shrooms.
Cheering Darla on from downunder
How do they differ? Smaller, rounder, firmer, paler, tastier.
DeleteKey limes are indeed smaller and quite juicy. They are the limes that grew in the Keys. The recipe comes from having those limes, lots of chickens for eggs, and very little fresh milk- thus the sweetened condensed milk which works beautifully! But I will not lie- these were just regular limes. Which work fine. And you can make a delicious lemon pie using the same recipe.
DeleteLots of lovely memories here today, although I can't relate to the mushrooms, I've never tried any of those "tripping" things. Grilled fish and key lime pie sounds wonderful. I usually do lemon meringue pies myself. Hoping Darla recovers.
ReplyDeleteWell, I consider myself very fortunate to have had psychedelic experiences. They allowed me to get past some pretty horrible stuff, to be honest. But like I said above- not for everyone.
DeleteI would like to do psilocybin again. It is definitely my fave though I did LSD more often as it was more readily available. I think I probably did mescaline and MDA at least once. In all my ventures I never had a 'bad trip'. I did almost step off a 10' or so cliff. It was at night and in the moonlight the ground looked to continue. My companion pulled me back. the best one was up in New Hampshire with a group of friends on psilocybin. We were headed to the coast but when we stopped for gas it was coming on so fast no way were we going to make it so we went to some kinds of forest park full of northwest pines and spruce and it was the most magical day. Definitely feeling one with and connected to all around me.
ReplyDeleteI make a key lime pie with graham cracker crust and topped with a layer of blueberries.
Oh, Ellen! I knew you'd know what I was talking about. Thank you for sharing your very positive experiences.
DeleteHmmm...limes and blueberries. Sounds good. I've also seen guava and key lime pie. I do love me some guavas.
Your Key West meal -- and its newest variation -- sound terrific. I love a good avocado salad, and that's not easy to come by in London, where avocados all tend to be as hard and tasteless as golf balls. I'm sure I had mushrooms growing in pastures all around me when I was young and I never knew it! Clueless!
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine replacing meringue with whipped cream. It's just not the same. But now that you mention it, I haven't had a pie with true meringue in a while.
Oh, there is no doubt you grew up surrounded by mushrooms. I have no idea how my "people" realized what we had growing in the cow fields but once we did, we took advantage of the situation for sure.
DeleteI think that whipped cream delivers more of a fat/sweet bomb to the mouth than meringue does but I still like meringue.
Your life now sounds so glorious. Loving husband, supportive family, a home and surroundings that you enjoy - key-lime pie and homemade bread whenever you want to make it. I don't understand why you want to mess with mushrooms or drugs to alter your self.
ReplyDeleteI think you have it all so I don't understand why you need something different.
That is so sweet of you to give me your honest opinion. Please trust me in that I do not want to alter anything. I just want to be more open to some things that I struggle with. The idea of aging and death for example. I believe that doing some mushrooms might help me be more at peace with these things. I take it very seriously and with an open mind and heart. If you get the chance, watch the Netflix documentary series or read the book that I mentioned in my post. I think you might see more of what I'm talking about.
DeleteI was at a party once where they were ingesting mushrooms, and they kept getting up and going to the bathroom to throw up. That didn't sound like much fun so I passed.
ReplyDeleteHuh. I know that vomiting is a part of some psychedelic substances such as peyote and ayahuasca and sometimes psilocybin but I never have had that reaction to the things I've taken.
DeleteDarla is alive? You made me smile.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind trying those mushrooms. I would hope for some sort of enlightment and a lifting of my mood.
That is a lovely meal memory you have of your mom and I'm glad you have it. I am a huge fan of key lime pie too, but with whipped cream, because everything is better with whippe cream.