THE PIE CHRONICLES

Why a Pie?

Well, in honour of Rosina, of course or Rosie as she was called in her little Bavarian village north of Munich.

My mother, a very sweet dumpling of a village woman who emigrated to Canada after the war, loved to bake. Her KaiserFriedrichsWilhelm’s torte, THE birthday cake of our youth was designed specifically to please a child. Its middle name (if you could fit a middle name into it, which you couldn’t really without breaking your tongue) was Excessive Overindulgence or simply Gemutlichkeit, if you want to capture the breadth and generosity of its Germanic spirit. It contained, from what I could make out: a brick of butter, a dozen eggs, a sack of flour, a shovel full of sugar, a bottle of rum, not to mention the addition of various secret fragrant baking powders from packages by Dr. Oetker.

Onto this baked wheel of sweet batter Rosina lathered butter icing. On top of this icing was tossed everything festive: coloured sprinkly bits, marashino cherries, and chunks of broken chocolate bars, jutting up delicious jagged slabs of nuts and caramel wafers floating in a sea of chocolate, on a bundt wheel of desire. For a child on his/her birthday, this was true love, both pure and decadent, love, in a cake.    

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