I have a culinary degree, and have worked as a professional cook, and have been a restaurateur. The “gastronomer” in my url is quite serious. I have Opinions about how people use the word chef (”chef” is a job title, it’s a French word that means “boss” and is a cognate of chief; only someone who actually runs a quality kitchen should be called a chef – you can’t be a “home chef”), about how “spaghetti bolognese” is used (it’s not just any spaghetti with meat sauce, Bolognese is a specific style that includes beef, pork and pancetta), about what a proper key lime pie is like (don’t even get me started).
Because of this, people expect me to be a food snob. I am NOT. You like what you like, and you should eat what you like, and anybody who looks down their nose at you for it isn’t a “foodie”, they’re a fucking asshole. You like Li’l Smokies in your box mac’n’cheese? Right on! You like Taco Bell? So do I! Let’s go get a crunchwrap and a gordita! You buy cheap pink box wine? Sure, I’ll have a glass with you, if you’re offering.
I have food I don’t like, and food I will offer what I find more enjoyable alternatives to (oil packed canned tuna has a very fine taste, while water pack tends to wash out the richer flavors), but hey, if you like the stuff I don’t, you eat that all you want!
I want to make fresh, delicious, high quality ingredients available to everyone, but don’t you dare take away my $1.99 “chocolate” covered waxy-tasting mini donuts! I will fight you!
Foodie-ism has stopped being about just enjoying food for yourself, and has, far too often, started being about sneering at the food other people like. It’s food hipsterism. And it’s bullshit. It’s often classicist and racist and ableist/healthist as well.
Don’t pull that shit around me. I will take you the fuck apart.
Okay, but what IS a proper key lime pie? And what isn’t? I presume it’s not just a lemon pie but with lime-flavored or lime-based filling instead of lemon?
Now you’ve got me curious.
You got me started.
OK, first of all, a key lime pie is NOT made with “regular” (Persian) limes. It is made with key limes, aka Mexican limes. They are smaller than Persian limes, about the size of a ping pong ball. They’re also not a deep green, but more of a yellow-green, and the juice is yellowish. They are considerably tarter than Persian limes, and have a distinctive flavor. They’re also kind of a pain to juice if they’re not fresh-picked, so personally I always buy bottled up here in Seattle. (I’m from Florida, where part of the year you can get good ones from groves or even off your own backyard tree.) Nellie and Joe’s Key West Lime Juice is the only brand I know and trust, and if your grocery store doesn’t have it, Amazon does.
A key lime pie is a custard pie made from key lime juice, egg yolks, and typically sweetened condensed milk, in a graham cracker crust (none of your bullshit butter cookie crusts, save that for some other, appropriate, kind of pie). Traditionally, you *can* put meringue on top, but only to use up the egg whites you separate from the yolks. It’s not fucking lemon meringue pie, there should not be a huge mound. Personally I don’t like wet French meringues (made with granulated sugar, as opposed to Italian meringues, which are made with syrup), I think they feel like sweetened snot in my mouth. You can also add a small amount of sweetened whipped cream when you plate it, but only a dollop.
A key lime pie should never, EVER be green. If it is, the baker doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing, and you should skip it. Even a custard pie made with Persian limes shouldn’t be green, ffs.
A key lime pie SHOULD be both very sweet and very tart, as well and very smooth and creamy. My personal standard for the flavor is that when you take a bite, the first thing you taste should be the creamy and the sweet, and then the tart should hit you, but your mouth shouldn’t pucker until you take a sip of water and wash the sugar away.
A key lime pie filling should not contain flour, starch, gelatin, or other stabilizers. It should be as simple as possible. Key lime pie, historically, is poor people food from the Florida Keys, using the basic ingredients they had lying around: limes from the backyard, eggs from the chickens (they still run around loose on Key West), a can of sweetened condensed milk, some graham crackers, sugar and butter for the crust. You’d stir it up, pour it into the pie shell, pop it in the over with dinner, pull it out and stick it in the icebox (with literal ice) to cool, eat it the next night. (Unless you used a no-bake version, where the key lime juice itself denatured and “chemically cooked” the egg yolks. But it’s too easy to get salmonella that way these days, in the US.) They’re meant to be simple, dammit.
Key lime pie was the kind of thing they made in shotgun shacks. (Which frequently look a little different in the Keys than they do in those pics. The hallways often have rooms built off both sides of the hallway, and the roof’s peak sometimes runs perpendicular to the hallway, and then additional sections might get added to the back as the family grew, leading to rooflines like ^^^^.) Just a bit of history.
So then. Key Lime Pie Recipe Time! This is the recipe my family has always used, it’s the recipe I used in my restaurant, it always gets rave reviews, and it is thoroughly authentic. Because I hate meringue, it does not include meringue.
You will need:
Hardware:
one mixing bowl
one wooden spoon, stirring spatula, or spoonula
one liquid measuring cup
one small bowl for separating eggs into
one graham cracker pie crust, recipe to follow, or use a store-bought one, I don’t care
Ingredients:
1 - 12oz can sweetened condensed milk 3 egg yolks ½ cup key lime juice
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Mix those things together until smooth. Don’t beat them hard, you’ll incorporate air into the mix, that will mess up your texture and give you bubbles. When it is completely smooth, your oven should be hot, stick your filling in the fridge for a little while. Pre-bake your crust for 15 minutes, trust me, it is so much better if you do this. Do this even if it’s a store bought crust. If you don’t, your crust can get soggy. Pull it out, let it cool 10 minutes. Pour in the filling, bake 15 minutes. Pull it out. Let it cool for 30 minutes of a countertop, then stick it in the fridge for at least four hours, preferably overnight. Share and enjoy. (Or eat it all yourself.)
Graham cracker crust recipe:
You will need:
Hardware:
one mixing bowl one glass bowl to melt butter in one gallon ziplock OR a food processor a wooden spoon
Ingredients:
1/3 of a box of graham crackers 1 stick butter 1/2c sugar one 9″ pie plate one heavy glass with a smooth flat bottom
Dump the graham crackers into the gallon ziplock or work bowl of your food processor. If using a bag, crush them up real good, until you have a lot of fine meal and some small pieces. If you’re using the food processor, break them up roughly, then pulse until you get the same thing.
Put them in the mixing bowl. Add the sugar, and stir to combine. Melt your butter. Mix that in. It should reach the consistency of wet sand, like you’re making a sandcastle. If you pick some up in your hand and squeeze it in your fist, it should hold its shape until you poke it.
Press this firmly into the bottom and up the sides of your pie plate. Then use the bottom of your glass to press it in even more firmly. Really compact it. Then bake it as above.
Great all-purpose graham cracker crust recipe, good for cheesecake too.
If you lose track of this recipe, look on the bottle of Nellie and Joe’s, that’s where we got it!
If you want to get really ridiculous and over the top, make a triple batch of filling and put it in the same crust. That’s what we did at the restaurant. But you might want to find someone to share the slice with!
There. I told you, don’t get me started. It’s a whole fucking thing with me. In the restaurant, if somebody asked in the key lime pie was authentic, the servers would go, “Oh, the owner’s from Florida, she has a thing about key lime pie. I can go get her if you like, she’s got a whole rant. It’s really funny.” And they would go get me out of the office and I would do a whole little standup bit about key lime pie. Much shorter than this was. I just wrote like 1200 words on this. I could write more. I won’t. I’m done.Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk?
I have never liked key lime pie.
Apparently I’ve been eating bad key lime pie and need to home make some asap.
Thank you, random chef on the internet. You may have saved key lime pie in this household yet.
I would also like to say thank you to random internet chef for:
1. Defending the right of people to like what they fucking please, and smacking down classist bullshit.
2. Giving me a fantastic key lime recipe. My dad used to make it properly. He died some years ago, and I could never find a recipe for it. But this looks very, *very* similar to the spread I used to see in his kitchen when he was making it. I’m going to try it, and if it’s even remotely similar to his, I will sit there happily sobbing into my key lime pie. Thank you.
I answered this one somewhere else, too. First, if there’s a grocery store that has an American section, check there. I’m told they’re not uncommon in summer because they’re needed to make s’mores. Second, check Amazon or equivalent.
If you can’t get them, you can try the almond meal method, or you can resort to butter cookies, although I disapprove of this if graham crackers are available. Digestive biscuits are sometimes suggested as an equivalent, but they are not the same. You’re welcome to experiment, though. In any case, you’ll have to experiment a little.
Speaking as someone who has been lucky enough to have some of @madgastronomer‘s key lime pie, OH MY G-D I MISS IT. And I am saving this recipe so I can maybe make it myself one of these days.
Seeing as I live in a household with two lovers of key lime, I will need to try this.
Somebody reblogged the key lime pie post. So happy!
I used to like Key lime pie growing up, and then suddenly I didn’t. For years I figured it was just a particularly tragic example of tastes changing over time. It never occurred to me until right now that I might just not be getting the real thing after moving from Florida to Pennsylvania.
It may be time to experiment.
(Wish me luck. I’m a decent cook, but desserts are my one major shortcoming. Less room for error, I think.)
Yeah, Pennsylvania absolutely does not know from key lime pie. You have not been getting the real deal. Try making it, and follow the recipe exactly. Cooking is an art, but baking is a science; do not deviate from baking recipes unless you know exactly what you are doing.
Soooo I was very intrigued by the recipe and had to try it. I’m no kind of baker but, as pointed out, this is an extremely simple pie to make. And um, holy moly. It’s real good y’all.
Maybe not the prettiest pie you’ve seen but got-damn it’s tasty as hell. One change from the listed recipe: it says 12oz can of sweetened condensed milk, but they come in 14oz cans. The recipe on the juice bottle says 14. The coffee I was planning to drink with the leftover canned milk is sadder for the loss, but the pie is 2oz better.
Shit, did I put 12? That’s a typo, it’s def supposed to be 14. Thanks!
Glad you like it!
I am reblogging this because
YES, CRUSH FOOD SNOBBERY.
Oh my G-D, I miss @madgastronomer’s restaurant and their Key lime pie was MAGICAL.
If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
I don’t really know what people generally call this method of sigil making, so I’m just calling it “Letter Shaping” because you’re using the basic shapes from certain letters. This is the most common form of sigil making, and it allows the most creative influence. As you see above the sigils are for nearly the same thing, yet the sigils came out completely different. Not because the purpose was different, but because I approached them both a different creative way, and that’s what I like so much about this method. There’s a lot of freedom and personalization involved.
“If voting did anything they’d make it illegal” wow I guess gerrymandering isn’t a thing, I guess taking away all first nations peoples in a state’s right to vote isn’t s thing, I guess “accidentally” deregistering thousands of black voters isn’t a thing, I guess charging fees and closing early isn’t a thing etc. Etc. Et Fucking Cetera
@flowergirlrobichiko i want you to know that i fucking support your addition and that i appreciate your comment
Especially as someone who can’t vote yet… fricking vote please!!! ❤️
It’s important!!
VOOOOOOOTE.
PLEASE VOTE
I’m not 18. I can’t do anything except volunteer to register voters, and I’m trying to do that. But the administration is trying to legally erase trans people. I can’t vote, so I can’t tell my government what I want.
But you, that 18, 19, 20, 24, 28, 32, year old, reading this? You can. So please, register. Please, please, please, vote, for those like me that are too young, and for the thousands of minority group members that have been cheated out of their rights. Your vote counts, so, please, use it.
This Canadian is reminding her American followers to vote.
Hey American folks who are old enough: please vote. It may not seem too important to some of you for various reasons but it genuinely is. No excuses, folks. You need this.
Please vote. We can’t change things if we don’t even try. Sure, a single vote by itself might seem like it won’t mean much, but in the same way a downpour of raindrops can create floods, we can do the same.
And for those of you saying voting will change nothing and more direct action of some sort is needed: consider the power of doing both. This is not an either/or proposition.
Hi Steph, I feel a bit embarrassed but I also don't know who else I could tell this to... I've been feeling more isolated than ever before in my life. Not getting along with my dad, my brother and I don't speak, feeling like my friends only like me when everything is about them all the time, living alone, work just takes advantage of me, etc. I'm currently working really hard to change my life, which includes downsizing my living space and getting rid of 75% of stuff that I own. (ds 1/2)
But in doing this, I can’t stop thinking about how much easier that would make committing suicide. I wouldn’t leave much mess behind for people to clean up and I could get all my affairs in order first. I just… I don’t know. I can’t get it off my mind. I’ve struggled with suicidality on and off for almost a decade now and I’m just so exhausted… I don’t see the point in trying anymore. Thank you for listening and I hope you’re having a good day otherwise. 💕 (ds 2/2)
Hey Nonny *BIG HUGS*
First of all, I just want to say, I’m not a professional, but I really do think you need talk with one. Please. Because I’m worried for you and they can help you sort through your brain. I know, I don’t practice what I preach, which is why you can only take my words as anecdotes I use to help y’all feel more relatable, and let you know the things I’m doing wrong so that YOU can do them right.
So that said: I know how it feels; I’ve struggled with suicidal thoughts here and there since I was 10, and there was a point in my life after dad died that it got very difficult and hard and everything was crashing around me. I felt stagnant in my job, and my life, and just existing, wondering if it was worth it. And again this past winter it hit me bad when everything piled up (the fraud, the theft, the write-off accident, the slip-and-fall, the insurance issues, the loss of my phone, the annoyance about not feeling respected at my job…) all in a 2 week span, during time off I was looking forward to because I hadn’t had time off since April 2019 (I still consider this the case, since Christmas was a bust), in the middle of the worst bout of seasonal depression I’ve ever had.
It’s very tough to move on from stressful life events when you have mental health issues; it makes packing away our lives feel as pointless as continuing on after a catastrophic couple weeks.
And I know it’s different for everyone, but Nonny, I promise you, even just talking with my best friends has done wonders. I do need to talk to a therapist, but the ones available to us at my job are all booked up and take people on a minimal basis, so it’s been hard to also be now locked up and looking forward to a summer I can’t really enjoy. I can still go out for walks, but the fun of my walks was walking 10 km to the specialty doughnut shop, and then eating it on the bus ride home, or walking 5 km to the Sunday Market, have a little brunch at the shops there, and walk home. I feel I can’t do that kind of distance now because I need to be close to home so I can run to the bathroom if I need to (on those long walks, I would stop in at a Timmies or something for a break and continue on. My bladder isn’t what it used to be). ANYWAY, this point of me telling this story was because I love summer, and I’m trying my best and making do with the situation. I try to get out and do things I enjoy, just in different ways until All This™ is over.
And let me tell you: It’s worth living. This is why I wait until I’m in a good headspace to answer asks like this, Nonny, because I said that without hesitation. Because it really is. I MAKE things that I’m looking forward to so I can carry on, even during All This™. I bought new games, I’m looking forward to spending my weekend playing them. I’m looking forward to the weekend so I can go spend it outdoors. I’m looking forward to getting a home instead of a shit apartment, and possibly getting a cat, so I have someone else’s life I need to ensure is safe – to give myself a purpose. I’m looking forward to eventually see my sister again, and go on holidays with her. That was our summer plan, but obviously it had to be pushed back.
So, Nonny, you need to find out what you’re looking forward to, no matter how big or small: seeing your friends, your favourite artist’s new album, a movie coming out, going to the zoo, Christmas, whatever your fancy. And keep making yourself little things to keep moving on.
Because it’s worth it, Nonny. It really truly is. And this is coming from someone who has a lot of Dark Days and Demons that perpetually keep me in a negative mindspace. But it’s taken me years to realize I need help, and when I’m able, I’m going to.
I know there’s a post going around that I thought I reblogged, but these should get you started. I’m sure that if you called any of the National lines, they will most DEFINITELY have your country’s helpline if you’re not from US, Canada, or UK (sorry, a lot of my audience is from either of these three so these were my first picks).
AND, if you think no one would care if you’re gone, I WOULD. WE ALL WOULD. Please, Nonny, I love you, and I care about you and I want you to know that it does get better. <3 Talk with your closest friends and family too. They will help you.
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