The Great British Baking Show

Grandmother Moss loved baking for others and she loved game shows. At least, she seemed to. She was such a kind person that most of what she did was for other people. My granddaddy was confined to the bed most of the time and I think game shows helped him have some interaction and kept his mind sharp. So she may have just kept those shows on for him while we all sat in the living room - the only air-conditioned room in the house, and shelled purple-hull peas. I don't know how she really felt about baking, but I know that she loved our reaction to her seasonal dessert spreads. Everything was completely homemade. I loved her coconut cake and Pam loved her chocolate meringue pie. As a special touch on that coconut cake, she would save aside some coconut milk and pour it over the cake when she took it out of the oven and it made it nice and moist. Yes, when I say homemade she even grated her own coconut. On Thanksgiving once, I remember running through the dining room and stopping to admire the display on the sideboard...Chocolate Pie, Coconut Cake, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Cake, and Blackberry Cobbler. Each dish was as wonderful as the next. One of my co-workers at UNCC and I were talking about our holiday memories once and I told her about how much trouble Grandmother went to and then how tired she would be after dinner was over. I said maybe she should have just made less food and not stressed herself out that way. Pam - Pam James, not my sister said "But you never forgot it. She was making memories, not dessert." How right she was. I will never forget it.

So today, with this combination of game shows and baking in mind I watched an episode of The Great British Baking Show.  They made a version of chocolate pie - to my mind, they ruined it by putting mint in it and some flare called Italian meringue which no one did well and their meringue came out all gloppy, and in some cases not even browned. They made mincemeat pies which I don't recall having until I was a teenager in PA. Maybe I just blocked it out, I'm not a fan. This show was a contest between three bakers and the nice thing about it was that even though they were competing, they consoled each other when something went wrong and tried to help each other as well. Grandmother would have appreciated that kind of camaraderie.  Sometime soon, I'm going to try my hand at a chocolate pie. I have discovered that I need a hand mixer to make a good meringue. So I'll need to get one of those. I don't know what event this picture was taken at - but it was one of those times where she wore herself out doing for others.