This article was written following the death of The Old Desert Bachelor. I had been
retelling his stories for years and I think this is the best of them. I sure am bushed
today. I didn't get much sleep last night. Ever since I had all of my teeth pulled last
month I have been living on canned soup and pudding. The dentist told me that I would have
to be eating soft foods at least until my gums healed. So I stocked up with soups and
puddings. I don't seem to get too bored eating the soups because I can get a pretty good
variety. I sure am getting tired of puddings though. The other day I discovered that I had
gone through all of my puddings except the lemon pudding. The only instructions on the
back of the lemon pudding box was for lemon meringue pie. I never have cared for the white
stuff on the top of my mom's lemon meringue pies and as a kid I would always scrape it
off. So for a long time I just had soup alone for dinner.
My mouth got to feeling pretty good not long after the stitches worked out. Man those
stitches were really miserable, it felt like having a mouth full of dry spaghetti noodles.
I was gaining some of my appetite back, when I got the most awful yearning for something
sweet. I would look up in the cupboard and all I had left was that directionless lemon
pudding mix. I got to the point that I just couldn't take it any longer and decided that
if I followed the directions for the pie, worked forward, I might make it. Who knows maybe
I would learn to like it. I went to the general store and picked up a pie shell after my
first attempt at pie-shell-making flopped. I then made the filling, filled the shell and
put it into the refrigerator to chill.
It doesn't look like much of a pie without the meringue, so I decided that I would have
to put meringue on my pie. I looked all over the place for the pudding box for the
directions to no avail. I remembered mom used raw eggs and beet the H out of them with her
hand egg beater. It took me about an hour to find that beater. The kitchen was a mess and
I hadn't even started yet. I beat those eggs until I was blue in the face and my arm felt
like rubber. All I got was foamy eggs. I gave them to the dogs.
It was then that I decided to seek some expert advise. I called a neighbor that I
consider an excellent cook who told me that I should chill a metal bowl and the beater,
the eggs should be at room temperature. Beat the eggs in the bowl and add 1/4 teaspoon of
Cream of Tartar, then very slowly add sugar, all the while continuing to beat the eggs
rapidly until the eggs stiffen and peak. OK! I'VE GOT IT!
The bowl and the beater go into the freezer to chill, three eggs come out of the
refrigerator to warm. I'm on a roll now, I can almost taste the pie already. Now what the
heck's Cream-of-Tartar. I call my neighbor back and she says it's like a spice and should
be in a small jar or can. She said if I had some lemon juice I may be able to substitute
it for Cream-of-Tartar. I again searched cupboards. All that I found was a partial bottle
of lemon juice of unknown vintage.
Out of the freezer comes the metal bowl and eggbeater. Into the bowl go the eggs. Pick
out the egg shells. grab the eggbeater, boy it is cold. now beat like heck. Ah they are
starting to thicken. I'm on a roll again now. Now for the lemon juice. Beater hits lemon
juice bottle and breaks same. Why won't my hands come off of the eggbeater? ouch! Frozen
to beater. Under faucet. Turn on faucet with elbow. soak hands for 5 minutes. Clean lemon
juice off floor. Now back to the eggs. They look kinda funny. But the dogs like it.
I just have to do it right. I wash everything up, then 3 eggs out of refrigerator, I
put the metal bowl and beater in refrigerator this time. I figure this will work, if I
just do things right from the get-go. I'm going to need Cream-of-Tartar for sure. I call
the neighbor again and she doesn't have any. So off to the Newberry General store I go.
Heck it's only 17 miles round trip and if I hurry I can make it before they close.
Wouldn't you know it, they don't have any Cream-of-Tartar. Its only 22 more miles into
Barstow. I get back home from Barstow and it is late. I got two of the largest jars of
Cream-of-Tartar I could find, one for me and one to give to my neighbor.
I go through the same thing again. Only this time I am smart, I have it all planned
out. I measure out the 1/4 teaspoon of Cream-of-Tartar and set it to the side. Measure the
sugar and set it to the side. I beat the eggs, add the Cream of Tartar without hardly
missing a beat. I'm on a roll again. I gotta keep up the speed because any pause at all in
the beating and I have lost it. Arm is getting tired but it's almost time to gradually add
the sugar. OK dummy I say to myself. Here I am with both hands on the beater, how in the
heck am I going to gradually add sugar? In a flash I transfer the sugar to a metal scoop,
set it on the edge of the counter with its handle sticking over the edge. Back to the eggs
beat them back to peaks. Kneel down and pickup the sugar scoop and without missing a beat
or spilling the sugar I start to add the sugar gradually to the mixture all goes well for
the first 1/4 cup or so, at least until my gums gave way on the scoop handle and in trying
to catch the sugar I knocked the whole kit and kaboodle on the floor. It was then that I
started to get mad. I was so mad I was shaking.
I took out my last three eggs to warm. cleaned up the mess. after an hour of searching
I found my mom's electric beater. This time it worked like a charm. When I took the filled
pie shell out, it was all cracked and pulling away from the sides. It also had sort of a
cloudy milky coating on the top of it. Don'tcha know that's when I figured out why my mom
used to cover hers with that white fluffy stuff. I put that pie in the oven, set the timer
and sat down for the first time in hours to wait.
The timer awakened me just as the sky was lightening up to the east over the Cady
mountains. I took that pie out of the oven and it was beautiful but for some reason I
wasn't hungry so I gave it to the dogs. Those dogs made out pretty well, after all they
had a dozen eggs.
Oh! that reminds me the reason I stopped by. Do you happen to have a dozen eggs I can
borrow? I found another package of Lemon pudding mix in the back of the cupboard. If all
goes well I will bring you over a piece of lemon meringue pie next week sometime.
Copyright 1995, William E. Smith, All Rights Reserved
Newberry Springs Chamber of Commerce
P.O. Box 116
Newberry Springs, CA 92365
Phone: (760) 257-1072
