Wherefor art thou the Cupcake Wench?

To set the scene:  We begin, in the waning days of 2001, in a small, quaint, picturesque New England college, remarkable only in its unremarkableness.  In a small, cluttered, unremarkable dorm room, we find our subjects. 

The room is occupied by an unspecified number of polite, intelligent, well-mannered young women, cheerfully and sedately passing an evening.  Also in the room is a tray of unremarkable pink cupcakes. 

"Barnum*, my dear girl," says Bunny* politely and without a hint of imperiousness "won't you be a love and fetch me one of those darling cupcakes?"

"Bunny*," replies Barnum*, in a tone devoid of any derision or scorn, "I would, of course, fetch you anything else your heart desired, but, alas, I am not your Cupcake Wench."

And though, despite being polite, intelligent, well-mannered young women, Bunny* and her companion Deborah* were revealed to be Evil as well as polite, intelligent, and well-mannered.  They declared then and there that Barnum* was, in fact, their Cupcake Wench and would continue to be so until the slow heat death of the universe.

Barnum* continues to receive Christmas Cards from Bunny* addressed to the Cupcake Wench to this day.



*Names changed to protect the innocent-until-proven-guilty.  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is intentional.

Strawberry Pie!

I love strawberries in all forms.  This form especially.  I made this pie last week and had a piece at every meal.  Fruit and pastry, just like a poptart, so it must be a breakfast food, right?

Ingredients:
3 containers of strawberries (1/2 quarts are what they usually come in I think)
1 cup sugar
4 tbs corn starch
1/3 cup cold water
Pre-baked pie crust (home-made pie crust is nice, but truthfully, the premade ones are so easy that I mostly don't bother to make my own crust)

First, wash, hull, the cut the berries into bits.

Put half the cut berries aside.  Put the remaining half in a large saucepan and mash 'em up.  (I use a potato masher.  If you have a food processor, you could probably use that too.) 

Next, mix the sugar, corn starch and water together. 

Make sure to get all the chucks mixed in.

Add the sugar/starch slurry to the mooshed up berries.  It should be a sort of pinkish goop.

Cook it over low to medium heat.  Stir it gently to keep it from sticking to the pot and burning.  The liquid will start to thicken and become clearer and darker red.

Once it's thick and red, take the mix of the heat and let it cool a bit, so it's not steaming steadily any more.  Once it's a little cooler, fold in the berries you put aside earlier.  You want the berries to be all coated, but still solid and obviously strawberries.

Pour or spoon it into the pie shell, smoosh it around 'til it's smooth and pretty, and pop it in the fridge to cool and set.  Serve it plain, with ice cream, or my fav, with homemade whipped cream.