Not coming up: "pie for all"

Normally around this time of year I start thinking about progress on the "Six Delicious Years" of pies from Ken's awesome book, as well as planning new any interesting creations for the new year.

However, this year I think it's important to begin with a recipe that will not be posted on this blog: "Pie for all."

In a previous post I suggested that I'd make a pie that all people, regardless of food allergy, food philosophy or food restriction could share. I thought I was onto something with a diabetic-friendly apple pie in a vegan sorghum crust, and then I discovered the concept of fructose intolerance. Meanwhile, stricter interpretations of "locavore" and "Kosher" create incompatible restrictions for anything but a purpose-built farm. And, committed to pie-making as I am, No.

Also, that generally unoffensive apple pie would probably be very bland. With the ingredient list determined by what it cannot have, it's likely that the filling would include only apples, cinnamon and cornstarch. Because any allergy or rule gets a veto, no one's personal interests or taste could make much a stamp. Stifling creativity and accepting a "good-enough" pie is very much opposed to the goals of this baking blogger.

I think I've found the deeper lesson in all of this: hospitality is a deeply personal thing, and my "pie for all" plan is impersonal by design. Rather than asking what a guest wants and needs, my hope was to eliminate consideration of the specific guest in favor of a generic "one size fits all" dessert. Instead, discussing likes, dislikes and restrictions should be viewed as an important part of the process itself. A tasty dessert should be an end in itself, but a means of facilitating engagement and discussion. This process need not, and should not, have to wait until the pie leaves the oven.

There is, perhaps, a larger lesson in all this. Any attempt to make a "universal" rule is bound to fall into either blandness or get caught up in incompatible restrictions from various quarters. Consider the UN Anti-Blasphemy Resolution, to a Western audience such ideas are patently ridiculous, such ideas are throwbacks to the days before the Enlightenment made us aware that mixing church and state is bad for both. But to countries that base their legitimacy on a particular faith, blasphemy is no less a threat than corruption and authoritarian movements are to Western democracies. Personally, I fall on the Western side of this debate, but the larger point is that one rule is not sufficient for the entire world.

New Tire Sonnet

Be what you are, loyal commuting bike
And wear that thin racing rubber no more
Slick and fast and thin but indeed unlike
The touring tires your frame truly adores
Enjoy, embrace, and roll with new Michelin
Ignore foolish poets who might conflate
Absent friction with love to their chagrin
One two five psi will oft deflate
A Trek seven hundred yearns for a trail
With rack and panniers for food and for tools
Fast commuting instead just seems so pale
The province of lazy, dimwitted fools
Poor Jack sang quite well of living your call
My bike, take heed before we take a fall

I recently gave up on the tube-eating 700x23mm tire I've been using since the spring. On a bike with a lighter frame, or if I didn't have my panniers above it, or . . .

The point is, there are almost always reasons to continue to pursue a solution that doesn't quite work. As an engineer with academic ties, I see it most often in young students who feel they have to enter the field because they are "smart", and who spend their undergraduate years miserable because they are overworked and uninterested. Worse yet are the graduate students who do the same. Should I ever be directly responsible for such poor lost souls, there will be a periodic viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas, or at least Poor Jack, to drive home the point that there are things you should only do because you're called to them.

Also, I'd been hoping that a couple recent shifts in my professional situation would lead to a "I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!" kind of moment. Alas, nothing ever works out like it should. So until then I'll transfer my existential angst to my favorite mode of transportation.

Apple-raspberry mini-pie

Technically, a "mini-pie" is a tart, but this is a pie blog. However, instead of a traditional extra-thick tart crust, this one had a very thin rolled whole wheat pie crust. It's a good one to serve for the mildly gluten intolerant, since there's no top and the filling can be easily separated from the crust.

Ingredients:

1/4 recipe whole wheat crust

2 large apples, peeled and chopped
1 cup raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 T cornstarch

Procedure:

Roll out the crust until it's very thin, then line a tart pan, preferably heart shaped, with it.
Preheat the oven to 350F
Combine fruit in a small bowl.
Mix the sugar and cornstarch in a smaller bowl.
Stir the sugar mix into the fruit.
Scrape into the crust-lined pan.
Bake 20min, or until the raspberry juices bubble.

Tee shots on a log par 5

There are two major issues fighting their way through Congress right now that have the potential to substantially reshape American society. The first is Heath Care Reform, which has become Health Insurance Reform, with the almost solitary metric being number of people covered. The second is climate legislation, which is being predictably watered down.

Many bemoan the perceived loss of the opportunity to engage in truly wholesale reforms. Certainly, no one would design our current health care system from scratch. It's hard to see how anyone could defend a distribution network that forces people to stay with employers for fear of bankruptcy if/when something goes wrong. Especially when that system is pretty likely to bankrupt people anyway. Unless, of course, they are over 65 and happen to fall ill in the ways that are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America. Of course, one of the fastest growing industries in the US and Japan involves producing more health care options for this lucrative set. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but her father is profit.

Clearly, it would be in society's interest to change the incentives. Pay doctors salaries, instead of fees, and award bonuses for the number of days their patients are healthy and able to work. Ban, or at least heavily restrict, prescription drug advertising to help funnel drug company profits into research, not television. Set prices for medical procedures so insurance companies have to compete on quality and efficiency, not hospital networks. Set malpractice limits so that doctors and hospital administrators have an incentive to do autopsies and further develop best practices.

However, one man's waste is another's income. The "fee for service" model employs legions of billing clerks, and I dare anyone to push for reforms that reduce employment today. Prescription drug adverts pay for a lot of what's left of today's new television programming, and if you think newsrooms are shrinking now, just wait until they don't have Merck and Pfizer as sponsors. The struggles between hospital networks and insurers has generated a market which the established players can easily dominate. And seriously, find a Democrat who will stand up for actual tort reform.

On the climate side, the story is much the same. The current system digging up and burning our fuel has an impact similar to wrapping a refrigerator in cellophane while someone else plays with the thermostat. It's hard to say how big the effect is, especially over short time scales, but it's noticeable in the long run. Ocean acidification, on the other hand, is a very real and easily measured problem. So are the health impacts of mountaintop removal, smog and the odd coal ash flow in a river. Never mind that entire civilizations are built on a set of resources that might last another couple hundred years if we don't need too much more of them.

Alternatives exist, but no one will pay their capital costs until there is a clear and consistent policy that makes it worthwhile. This is not hard, a simple $.01/ton carbon tax on fossil fuels, especially one that was indexed to inflation, would be enough to get things started. But in the US especially we try to cajole good behavior without directly imposing costs, mostly through building codes and the CAFE standards. It does look as though the current bill before the Senate might start to change that. Maybe.

The point here is to remember that big changes happen slowly. We're dealing as a country with a few systems that developed mostly accidentally over the last century. We've finally begun to face them in a serious way, but that century for habits, beliefs and interests to become ingrained will not change overnight. Today's legislation is the tee shot on a long par 5. A hole in one would be nice, but aim for the fairway. Make sure the next debate is about how to finish out, not whether or not to play.