Last week we had a scheduling conflict, and since Sir Monkeypants and I were going to be out at different times, it was hard to get a sitter as no one would be able to drive her home. So instead, I asked Fame Throwa to come over and babysit, and to say thank you, I baked her some mini pies.

It’s been a while since I made a pie – now that my Year Of Pie is over, I’m only making one about once a month or maybe even once every six weeks. But I’m impressed at how easy it has gotten, I almost never swear anymore. Well, MOSTLY.

While we were in Florida we took one afternoon to go outlet shopping, which I believe is a requirement of vacationing. I think Sir Monkeypants was pretty excited at the idea that I might actually buy some new clothes, and then he could be seen out and about with a nice lady who was not wearing a solid-coloured scoop-neck t-shirt featuring a salad dressing stain and a small hole in the belly.

But of course, instead of buying clothes I bought pie plates. Nothing like something heavy and breakable to add to the luggage!

These mini pie plates came from the Le Creuset store, where a cast-iron pot with a lid can run you $350. So mostly I went in to drool, but then these wee plates were on sale, and they were FOR PIE, so it was destiny.

These pies I made for Fame Throwa were two apple, two strawberry, and I hear they were divine, the best I’ve ever made. They certainly were cute. I didn’t end up tasting them at all because my meeting that night ran super late, and Fame Throwa was trapped in our house for hours with a) two password-protected computers, b) two Fitness magazines she had already read, and c) a TV remote that was not working. So basically she sat in silence in my house for five hours and thus, she got ALL THE PIE.

My meeting that night, by the way, was at The Board to talk about moving the grade 7/8 students out of my kids’ school. The Board made it fairly clear that moving the entire area to a 7-12 high school model is the wave of the future, but hopefully they heard our appeals that their current plan for our local students is just insane. It makes no sense to try to repurpose a tiny school full of primary facilities for larger sized students with different needs, who will be trying to use the school at over 150% capacity, when there is no money at all for any kind of refurbishments. Parents from my kids’ school pummelled the Board with presentations on this subject – they’ll be debating our points in a couple of weeks, then making a final decision at the end of April.

GAH, politics, I hate this stuff but in this case it’s necessary. Let’s all make ourselves feel better with pie, shall we?