Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Baby Banana Cream Pies

During my freshman year of high school, my best friend Wendy Foss and I would lolly gag after the last bell rang. Sometimes we would be involved in a project with drama class, or we'd try to earn a little extra credit in the library for our English class, but more often than not, we were sitting unabashedly in the bleachers, watching water polo practice. I'm not proud of this, knowing now that my time could have been much better spent, but readers, there you have it. I was a decidedly average teenager. This was in the days before call waiting or cell phones, so when Wendy and I had nothing left to stare at and were ready to go home, our first stop was the office to try and call our moms or even an older sibling. Inevitably, the phone lines were busy. So we would begin the hike home. Wendy was lucky-she only had to walk four miles before we parted ways, and I was left to walk the last lonely mile alone, up the hill to Gottes Lane. All the way home, we would stop at every available telephone to try yet again to make contact with anyone over the age of sixteen. At mile marker one was the telephone at Marie Calendar's. If we had enough money, we would soothe our disappointment about the tied up phone lines with a shared slice of banana cream pie. Pretty soon, we developed a real hankering for the stuff, especially the way Marie served it, all sprinkled with toasted almonds. We actually started looking forward to the long walks home, sweetened by long conversations and slices of pie. The next year, Wendy got her drivers license and as far as I can remember we never walked home or went to Marie Calendar's again. But all these years later, I still have fond memories of the banana cream pie, and truth be told of the long walk home with my best friend.
This week's assignment for Tuesdays with Dorie, brought back happy memories and turned me into a banana cream believer once again. Especially when you try Dorie's brown sugary custard filling. I still love you Marie, but Dorie's pretty tough to beat. (Here's the real recipe-you can make it for about $5.00.) I made my pies into little babies in custard cups. A 1/2 batch will get you two little pies, and then of course I had to make banana-less pies for my two little charges. They have never had to walk home from school, so they don't understand the powerful association for me and banana cream. And sometimes, I get a strange urge to whip cream by hand. It makes me feel kinda tough. That is, before my arm starts to burn and I feel like quitting, but don't want to wash even more dishes if I switch over to my Kitchen Aid. By then I don't feel so macho anymore. Next Up:
Carrot Ginger Soup

36 comments:

  1. Baby pies!! What a GREAT idea for Easter!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What cute little pies!!! And what a great memory! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. How adorable! I need to try this sometime!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pie, pie and more pie!!!! Love the little baby pies and such a great idea!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hooray for friend memories and cute little pies!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. My mom and I were just talking yesterday about "The good ole days" when you couldn't be reached at a moments notice, when fun meant you had rounded up enough kids to play kick ball, and when dinner was announced with a bell out your back door. Sounds like you "Ole" days were great as well!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love the little ones! Too cute! Great walk down memory lane too:)

    ReplyDelete
  8. It is so fun when a certain dessert brings back such fun memories. A 5 mile walk home? that seems really far to me.
    Anyway, your pies are so cute and I love the fact that you made banana-less ones for the kiddos!

    ReplyDelete
  9. That's such a great story!!!! I love that you were inspired to serve the almonds on top just like you used to get in high school!

    ReplyDelete
  10. LOVE the baby pies. I only made half a batch too and wasn't sure what to put it in. Darn, I even have ramekins. I used a small casserole dish. The pie WAS great though!
    Love your story about walking with your bf!
    Giveaway on my blog today until Friday!

    ReplyDelete
  11. What a sweet memory of your best friend and banana cream pie! :) Love the baby creams!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Great post! Your pies look adorable! Thanks for baking with me this week!

    -Amy
    www.singforyoursupperblog.com

    ReplyDelete
  13. I love the mini pies in the ramekins! They look so cute and sophisticated.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'm sorry you had to walk home on a regular basis. I did once and vowed I would never do it again. I waited once for hours and hours for a ride home, I'm sure I could've walked home in the time I spent waiting, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

    I loved your story. And your pies look so cute. Be sure and make some for Leslie the next time you see her!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Love the idea of making them into baby pies! I love all of your personal stories to go along with the dish.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Great story! I think I need to remember to add in a 5 mile uphill walk for every piece of this banana cream pie that I consume. Your baby pies are adorable!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Whip cream by HAND??? Girl you are hard core!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I love the story of your youth!

    ReplyDelete
  19. You have such an all-embracing wriitng style. I would have enjoyed reading more about the long walk home. Must come back to check out your site again .....

    ReplyDelete
  20. Love your individual pies! I am a banana cream pie lover...especially in a milkshake! What a fun story to remember with these little babies!

    ReplyDelete
  21. No joke, those pies are making me salivate! I don't have a Marie Calendars nearby and I badly miss their banana cream pie. I need to make this recipe.

    ReplyDelete
  22. For some reason I thought you and I felt the same way about bananas.
    I thought you made banana recipes, but I had no idea you actually ate them and felt nostalgic for their flavor.
    I understand, though because Lori Globerman and I used to walk to Naugles together for brownie sundaes before we could drive and no one would give us a ride.
    Also, for the record, it's 6 1/2 miles from our old front door to La Serna's campus.
    I know this well. Thankfully, it was shorter from church, but it was still a hike.
    Why on earth didn't I ever think to stop and have a piece of pie?
    Probably, because I was alone!
    Well, thank goodness you had Wendy Foss and a piece of pie to break up the long walk home.
    Next time you'll have to write about the dogs.

    ReplyDelete
  23. prudy, i have been on a banana cream pie kick since my last pregnancy and it has only intensified with this one. i can't wait to try this recipe. marie's isn't bad, but i've discovered that if i want some b.c. pie and i'm not willing to make it myself, paul martin's bistro is the place to get it. you may not have one in your little town, but if you ever eat at paul martin's, please order the banana cream pie and think of wendy foss (and me:). i had this pie and a lemon meringue or lemon cream on my menu for easter dinner and now i've a new recipe to try out. thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Erin.. everything looks so lush and chic.. you sure have some mad talents in the kitchen = )

    ReplyDelete
  25. This look delicious! This pie was a hit at my house :)

    Hope you'll stop by for Thrifty thursday tomorrow ;)

    ReplyDelete
  26. Cute pies. Look great. Great story. Great memories are forever.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Prudy, this story cracked me up because I have similar ones, only they are about 5 years later. Whenever I could succor a friend into walking home with me, we would stop and eat a full blown dinner meal of mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, soup, salad, pie a la mode....all on our way home. It seems like I even paid for the friends sometimes just because I felt so bad that they had to walk so far to get to our house--like I owed them a last meal.
    Anyway, I swear we were the only customers under 60 eating dinner at 4pm....but we had to fuel up!!!
    I wish I had tried the BC pie.
    Thanks for the fun memories and the new recipe!

    ReplyDelete
  28. What a great post! Your little pies look wonderful!

    ReplyDelete
  29. I saw those pies before reading and I instantly had the same memory especially the one where we got the whole pie. GReat memory E thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  30. Your pies look delicious! Thanks for sharing your fond memory of banana cream pie. I think I would look forward to walking home from school if there was a Marie Calendar's too!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Mmm, I like the idea of almonds on top, I'll bet that was killer!

    I guess one advantage to your teenage pie eating days was that you were also walking five miles each time you had a slice. If I did that, I might actually lose some weight, LOL.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Wow, out of hundreds of blogs I've visited, never have I come across such a delicious looking baby pie! My favorite is banana cream of course, so when I spied these my eyes nearly popped out of my head! So this is where you banana pies have been hiding out! Yummy!

    ReplyDelete