So last fall I decided that I needed to stop lurking behind a computer screen and venture out into the real world and make phone calls and knock on doors and show up at local Democratic club meetings and volunteer for stuff in a campaign office and do real life stuff.
It's a scary place, that real world.
I made phone calls against Proposition 23. I knocked on doors for Tim Allison, running against Elton Gallegly (CA-24). I showed up at meetings for a local Democratic club or two. I was asked to speak. I tried to do stuff at the local campaign headquarters.
But I'm not here to talk about any of that stuff. I'm going to talk about pie.
Funny, how all good DailyKos diaries always end up talking about pie.
In November, based on the thoroughly confused idea that all bloggers are famous people, I was asked to be on the board of the local Democratic club. I would have to give an election speech, and I would officially have to run for office. This was terrifying - I blog because I hate public speaking. So I came up with a Brilliant Plan: I would bribe them with a homemade pie.
So I took a cup of flour, and two tablespoons of sugar and one teaspoon of salt, and I cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the buttery bits were, mostly, no bigger than breadcrumbs, about 5 minutes of solid arm workout. The cookbooks say to cut in until the mixture resembles cornmeal, but mine never does. Then I added 4 tablespoons of water and stirred until some of it started to stick together. This is the phase that I call "crumbly but not too crumbly" - it looks like it falls apart, but then when you squish it together it sort of stays together. The pie crust went into the fridge for about an hour.
Then I took about 4 cups' worth of blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries, and dumped them into a bowl along with some flour (1/4 cup) and sugar (ditto, or to taste) and a bit of amaretto liqueur, which I could omit and swap out lemon juice if I wanted, but I like amaretto, so that's what I used.
Recipes are more like guidelines than rules, to paraphrase that famous baker Jack Sparrow.
And I rolled out the pie crust, and I put the fruit in, and I put a streusel topping on, and I baked it until it was done. And I took it to the meeting still warm from the oven, and gave a short speech mentioning that I was a DailyKos blogger, and not a very good public speaker but if you vote for me I'll bribe you with a slice of pie.
And it worked, and the pie got eaten and I got elected. So now I'm the Corresponding Secretary, which is fine until they expect me to answer letters with this quaint device called a pen.
Then I got invited to a countywide holiday party. So I made a linzertorte pie, which is a fancy shortbread cookie type crust with ground up almonds and a jar of jam spread onto the crust and baked until done, and David Atkins aka thereisnospoon and I talked about the difficulties in getting people to show up at the local campaign office in a predominantly red county, and the pie got eaten.
Then someone asked me to run to be a California Democratic Party delegate, where I would have to give a one minute speech and get people to show up and vote for me. Clearly, a pie would be needed! This one would be a pecan pie with my 4 tweaks to the recipe on the Karo syrup bottle. I would toast my 1-1/2 cups of pecans about 10 minutes before adding them to the filling mixture, to bring out flavor. I would use 1 cup of brown sugar instead of white sugar, and I would use 1 cup of blue-label (dark) syrup instead of red-label (light) syrup, because we're blue-collar, blue-skies, blue-party Democrats, right? I would use 3 eggs and 2 Tbsp butter like the recipe says, and instead of 1 tsp vanilla I would add two tablespoons of Frangelico, because it adds a grace note of depth to go beyond your basic super-sugary-sweet pecan pie.
And it worked, except for the part where I was so nervous that I forgot my speech at home and made an utter fool of myself for one minute, but at least the pie got eaten, and now I'm a delegate to the California Democratic party.
They want me on the Environmental Caucus.
I wonder why.
Pie crust dough rolling makes great thinking time. My original Brilliant Plan worked, but I have a lot more recipes and Democrats to be organized. So I made a blood orange tart with blood orange curd for a training session on how to be a delegate. And a bipartisan Cherry-Blueberry pie for another meeting. Next month, they'll get a strawberry-nectarine tart, or possibly one of my five million cheesecake recipes.
Oh, yeah. My cheesecakes are actually better than my pies. A favorite is the Chocolate Truffle cheesecake. I buy a pack of Oreo cookies, and give strict instructions to a teen to bring me 2/3 of the pack of just the chocolate wafer parts, and get rid of all the white stuff in the middle, and I won't ask how you do it or where it goes as long as you get it done right now, ok? The wafers get pulverized in a food processor, then mixed with 6 Tbsp melted butter and pressed into a springform pan for a crust. Then I beat 24 oz (3 packages) of room temperature cream cheese with 1/4 C. sugar until the lumps are gone, because if I don't beat out the lumps now they'll never go away later, and then add 3 eggs, 1 at a time, and then 8 oz melted bittersweet chocolate, then 1/2 C. whipping cream and 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1/4 C. liqueur of choice (Frangelico, Kahlua, and Grand Marnier all work well, but amaretto is my favorite), and bake until done in a very slow oven (300 degrees) without opening the oven door for the 1st 40 minutes to prevent it from cracking, and if it does crack I'll dust some powdered sugar or curl some chocolate as a garnish.
By now when I show up at monthly meetings, people know where to go. This past Wednesday, the pie was gone within 15 minutes.
But it won't be until September 2012 that the last phase of my Brilliant Plan will kick in. That's when the pies don't get brought to club meetings, but instead go to the local campaign office. Bwahahaha! You want a slice of Rustic Apple Tart? Make some phone calls. You bring in some cash? You might be favored with the Obscenely Rich Flourless Chocolate Torte. You want my Mascarpone Cheesecake with Pecan Praline Caramel Sauce (the caloric equivalent of shopping in Beverly Hills - if you have to ask, it's not on your diet)? Work it off, walk a precinct.
And that's how DailyKos helps turns red counties blue: one pie at a time.