I bet you thought that all the commotion about the soup pie was over.

    Au contraire.

    Well, even though the recipe said to cover the pie with plastic wrap in order to “keep a skin from forming”, I think I just plopped the pie, cover-less, into the fridge out of frustration when I realized it was soup for the second year in a row. And I thought that was that.

    Out of curiosity the next morning, I tilted it. Still soupy. Ugh, useless thing. I plopped it back in the fridge.

    I don’t know how many days later it was when my mom knocked on the door of my room, telling me that the pie seemed to have set. That evening, I decided to cut myself a slice.

       I slid the knife in and started tracing out a piece. At least I could tell it wasn’t soupy, because the piece stayed solid instead of filling back in. It was when I started pulling it out that it fell apart. The crust had sucked in all the lemon moisture and was now soggy so it didn’t hold together enough to be tugged out like a normal pie. But I had set my mind to taste this thing, so I wasn’t giving up quite so easily.
      Using the knife, I scooped the slice onto it, walked over to the kitchen sink in case it fell off, and tasted a bit. (Not exactly safe, using a knife, but hey, I wasn’t going to dirty a plate, a fork, and a knife for a nasty piece of pie.) The filling was tangy, with a hint of sweet, and creamy, and you didn’t even notice the soggy crust on the bottom. Yum!

    “Hey you guys! I made lemon pudding!”

    My little brother was the first one to the kitchen to ask for a slice. I proudly showed him the scoop method as I served. He liked it so much that he had two servings. Everyone else, though, I’m sorry to announce, was too scared to try some. Oh well, they didn’t know what they were missing.

    Of course, there’s always more to the story.

    Yesterday, I walked into the house to find my little brother finishing another slice of my lemon pudding pie.
     He licked his fork then looked at me pitifully, “Mama says I can’t have any more of your lemon meringue pie.”
     “Why not?”
     “She says it’s bad.”
     This didn’t make sense to me. I had tried it myself. How could it be bad? I thought that was the end of the conversation so I turned to walk down the hallway. Then he asked the fatal question.
      “Hey Rose? Are there supposed to be chewy things in your pie?”
      Heh, heh. Um yes??

      Don’t worry, folks, little brother still lives.