For some, success comes in a box

I have a little secret: I don't do pies -- as in make them -- mainly because pies require a pie crust, and I don't do pie crusts. When I need one, which isn't often, I look for the little red Pillsbury box in the refrigerated aisle. The little red box now contains two round pie crusts that you unroll instead of two square ones that you unfold. Those people at Pillsbury are geniuses.

I have no interest in making pie crusts because I have heard all my life how hard it is to make them. If someone tells me something is too hard, I'm going to believe them. No need for me to try to prove them wrong.

It's true that I have numerous recipes for homemade pie crusts with titles meant to reassure the first-time pie maker, such as "Never-Fail Pie Crust," "Can't Miss Pie Crust," "If You Can't Make This Crust You Are a Born Loser," etc. But I steadfastly refuse to try any of these recipes because if I try, and I do fail, what kind of loser would THAT make me? No, thank you. Adventurous people may enjoy finding -- and stretching -- their limits, but I prefer to keep mine a little fuzzy.

One Thanksgiving, Joe and I were invited to some friends' house along with a few of their relatives. The women in this family were all Pie Women. You know the ones I mean. They can crank out pies like the rest of us make grilled cheese. Of course they had gone all out for Thanksgiving. (I had opted to bring stuffing. No crust needed.) At some point the conversation turned to desserts, and for some reason -- maybe the stuffing went to my head -- I recklessly admitted that I didn't make pies.

Conversation all around the table abruptly stopped, and everyone stared at me. Then they looked at Joe with undisguised sympathy. I didn't make my husband pies? I may as well have said that I didn't kiss him goodbye each morning.

I hastened to reassure them that I make him all kinds of other goodies, but the social damage was done. I'm sure the women were busy thinking how they could slip him a couple of extra slices for the ride home, poor man.

But even this incident has not been enough to induce me to try Never-Fail Pie Crust. The public embarrassment is nothing compared with what I would suffer privately should I, indeed, fail at something that was, for everyone else, no-fail. No, my never-fail pie crust will continue to come in a little red box.

And luckily for me, Joe likes it just fine.