Jeanne-ology: Raisin Pie

Hi There! Today is Thursday and Jeanne is here with her take on the week at PJP. Enjoy! - Rebecca

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Hello Thursday Readers!  As I mentioned last week, I have been at the pie shop all this week.  We have been extremely busy and the next two days are frightening!  We have a pie tasting on Friday and a lot of Father's Day pie pick-ups on Saturday.  The Saturday orders are clipped with a magnetic clamp and attached to the side of our refrigerator.  Today we watched as the weight of the orders started  sliding down the side of the refrigerator!  What have we got ourselves into? (Rebecca editing to add: At least three members of Team PJP asked me today if we were going to close down orders but we have goals to meet this month and I’m an Enneagram Three, so we are going to leave the orders open.)

We had an order for an old fashion raisin pie this week.  Very seldom does anyone order this pie.  I grew up with my mother and grandmother calling the raisin pie a funeral pie because raisins have a lot of iron and supposedly kept a grieving member from fainting.  My granddaughter took a picture of me with the raisin pie and we started receiving orders for them.  I am the only one to make this pie because everyone at the shop HATES RAISINS!  I like raisins, although I didn't as a child.  My granddaughter commented that who in the world would want a raisin pie for a grieving family?  She also said that grieving would be hard enough without someone saying "Here's a raisin pie for your family".  They should offer something like chocolate instead.  I reminded her that a hundred years ago, the availability of chocolate deserts were readily available.  Remember she is a teenager! (Rebecca editing to add: We make three raisin pies - Old Fashion Raisin, Raisin Cream, and Sour Cream Raisin…which seems like raisin overkill to me. Any recipe that requires the boiling of raisins and the reserving of the raisin water is a hard pass for me.)

We had floor mixer problems again this week and I stayed with the repairman during the whole process - mainly to observe and learn what he needed to do in case the same issue came up again.  Then I could do the repair and besides, I like learning how to do repairs.  At one time he did ask me to back up because I was bending over to watch and my head was in the way of him putting in a new part.  I become so involved with something that I lose any sense of space.  Rebecca is always telling me that she can show me something on the computer without me being about two inches away from her face. (Rebecca editing to add: I was so thankful she was at PJP to take the tutorial from the repairman because I super hate that sort of thing. I avoided the whole situation, but I promise you Jeanne was living her best life while learning mixer maintenance and repair.)

Being at the shop this week has been nice because I don't listen to any news.  It is so depressing and for a few hours I can believe everything is back to normal in this country.  The down side of being back at the pie shop is the energy level.  I never realized how much effort it takes to open the shop and baking all the pies.  I think at one point that the thought crossed my mind that maybe I shouldn't have come back for a few more weeks.  But I really can't use that excuse because I am physically fine and Rebecca would probably give up on me on ever returning.   (Rebecca editing to add: Heck yes, it is a tremendous amount of work. And while she doesn’t need to be back as many hours as a year ago, she doesn’t need to be home all the time either because she gets bored and difficult to deal with. Plus, who would learn the mixer repair methods?)