Well, there’s a blizzard today, or rather it was yesterday and has drifted into today. The perfect weather for baking. Last night I made two pies. Well, originally I was only going to make a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. I’ve never made it before (only apple tart tatin twice), but somehow I  pinned this romantic sentimentality onto it and I was dying to make it.

First of all, you need to understand why cooking has so much stigma for me and baking is so romanticized in my head. Growing up, I saw my mom slaving away all day at her job (she worked out of the house) and then she had to make dinner. My brother and I would sit at the table and look at our plates with a, “This again?” even though it was always yummy, homemade Chinese food. But I was 15 and spoiled. What did I know yet of weekly instant noodles and sighing while going up and down grocery store aisles because I couldn’t afford the price of good food or didn’t know how to cook it anyways. My point being, slaving away in the kitchen did not look like fun to me. My mom was exhausted and cooking dinner at the end of her work day to a couple of ungrateful wretches was probably not too appealing and certainly not easy.

Baking, on the other hand, well, I don’t have too many memories of that. My dad used to bake very healthy, very hard bread that I would pretend to like so as to protect his feelings. Though I believe he did make great lasagna. At the same time, I have a few great memories of baking with my best girlfriend in high school. We’d go over to her huge, high-ceilinged house in Cambridge, Massachusetts with their quaint kitchen with all the necessary baking needs and European bowls and silverware—baking was an escape. Baking was our own beautiful, happy creation. Finally, this was something we got to do as young people that was all our own, had nothing to do with school or our families, was not out of obligation–not homework or another chore. It was because we wanted to. And it was (usually) delicious.

I have made Apple Tarte Tatin twice–using Smitten Kitchen’s recipe– relatively successfully, if you disregard the fire-in-the-oven incident at my girlfriend’s house. (Always remember to put the pie pan on a baking tray so the juices do not splatter onto the bottom of the oven and potentially set it on fire.) And so the Strawberry Rhubarb creation was a logical next step. However, the savory meat pie was all because of the BF.

SB: I’m going to make strawberry rhubarb pie!

BF: Mmph, uh huh…

So due to the BF’s lack of excitement in hearing about my sweet pie I decided to make him a complimentary savory one. (He’s one of those rare humans born, sadly, without a sweet tooth.) I had no idea what I was doing, was not prepared and so gathered whatever ingredients was in the fridge (things for my sausage mushroom soup and hearty bread which were yet to be made) and decided to go for it. I used Smitten Kitchen’s Chicken Pot Pie recipe and simply modified it. That is, I wracked my brain and anxiously threw in whatever I saw fit or was about to rot. And so — da da– Sweet Potato Pot Pie with Chorizo Sausage! There really is a lot of butter in all of this, but I admit it tastes amazing.

This has been a long and wandering blog, but I just wanted to end it with saying how much I do miss being with family this time of year. Holidays are hard. Who knew? My counseling teacher kept having us work on it in our classes and I just didn’t understand why she kept bringing it up. But after the BF and I had one of our biggest fights ever (though he thought our first one was the worst) I admit I’m a bit drained and this is where the pies come in. One can’t create or control one’s own family or fighting with the boyfriend, for that matter. But with baking it’s such a great big experiment and in the end—when it’s even better than you ever thought it would be—there’s nothing else like it.

Meanwhile, happy holidays everyone. Hope you’re having a great one with family and food. And mom, dad, Daniel—I miss you guys.