Summer Desserts

You know you're doing it right right when you have members of both sexes offering to leave their respective significant others for you just to get more of your pie. Get some.

On Independence Day this year, we discovered that we are in the eye of the firework storm. All of the surrounding neighborhoods dropped some serious cash for some pretty fantastic fireworks and all Mary and I had to do was walk down to the park on the corner and enjoy the show. Our only concern was the neighbors who were launching the fireworks directly over the power lines. The cops patrolling the area didn't seem to have any concerns though.


As raspberries hit their peak awesomeness in July, there is a direct correlation in the increase of raspberry pies crafted in July as well. The month's first raspberry pie was a test of my lattice work. It is much easier just to through a crust lid on top and cut some vents with a knife, but the lattice makes it look so much more prettier:

A couple weeks later, Mary and I got an invite to a friends BBQ birthday shindig, with a special request that I provide the birthday pie. Well, you don't have to ask me twice to bake a birthday pie. To supplement the pie, I also crafted the summer's first Emma Torte and some Kraken Rum spiked ice cream. I went with a standad top shell for the birthday pie, but with a little personalized flair:

The pre-baked work in progress is a little easier to visualize without the pie-goo:

I heard that the next morning, the raspberry pie filling from the leftover pie paired really nicely with some toast for breakfast. Pie for breakfast always starts the day off right.

--Isaac.

Stromboli Sans Pants

Just going to cut straight to the point on this one: I made stromboli without pants. 

Back in June, Mary hosted her sister's bridal shower, which segued into Mary hosting her sister's bachelorette party later that night, which then segued into Mary herding everyone back home from downtown Portland earlier than planned as the OLCC frowns upon people falling asleep in da clubs. But that's another story.

The next day was a recovery day, aka adult beverage marathon while watching Food Network shows we had DVR'd. One show, "The Best Thing I Ever Made", a creatively named spin off of the original show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate", is a recent favorite of ours. Chef Scott Conant is featured pretty regularly on the show and he happens to be one of our favorites mainly due to his impressively man-scaped beard. His featured dish was a stromboli - salami, cheese, basil and garlic rolled up in a simple pizza-like dough.

Aside from the the allure of the sandwich, what solidified this dish as one we would have to make immediately was that Chef Conant introduced his segment from his kitchen without wearing pants. Unanticipated sophomoric humor at its best. We were sold.

Luckily, I had some friends coming over for a birthday celebration, so I channeled my best Scott Conant, dropped trou, and rolled some stromboli. As much as they were all fans of the show, they were even bigger fans of the munchies.

To top it off, I even got the Scott Conant Pantsless Stromboli Seal of Approval.

Well played indeed.

--Isaac.