Lemon Meringue Pie

To Make a Lemon Meringue Pie:

The Crust:

Step One: Cube your chilled butter by chopping at the slick rectangular rod with your knife, and sift your scoops of flour into a bowl. Allow the specks of flour to cascade through the tiny wires holes of the sieve and into a fluffy, white mound.

Step Two: Work together the butter, flour, salt, and a bit of cold water. Your mission is to keep your buttery flour mixture at the same temperature as your refrigerator: Cold. Achieve this and you’ll receive the perfectly feeble, forkable, flakey crust.

Tip: You can slice your cubed butter into thinner shards to incorporate into your flour using knives or a fork, working the metal prongs against the fatty solid, or you can use your hands. I prefer to pinch at the flour-coated squares with my refrigerator-cold, nimble, bony fingers; the ones that resemble my mother’s, though not quite as warm. My naturally cold hands could be a result of poor blood circulation in the body, and it seems my veins are not quite performing to their utmost potential: perhaps they decided not to cube the butter or sift the flour. Maybe they added too much water, or God-forbid, warm water, and now the dough is soggy and butter chunks are melted and segments of slimy pastry are sticking onto the insides of my veins. Maybe that’s why my blood can’t reach my freezing cold hands: its flow is clogged behind barriers of over-saturated pie dough.

Tip: If you find yourself in a similar situation, consider the fact that your refrigerator-temperature fingers were given to you specifically by your mother in order to create a perfect crust for Lemon Meringue Pie. Making this kind of crust requires cold hands, the kind that make your friends wince when you latch onto their fresh-from-the-dryer, blood-circulated arms.

The Filling:

After your crust is complete and in the oven, you may commence with the filling.

Step One: Begin by heating up your sugar (sifted, just in case), cornstarch, and water in a pot on medium heat while whisking. As your whisk trails through the syrupy mixture, it should leave distinct patterns, like each metal rod is ice skating on fresh, glassy ice.

Step Two: Use that mixture to temper your egg yolks. Egg yolks are in the sensitive food group, so I’d advise that you warm them up with a hot drink before launching them into a volcano of steaming hot, syrupy liquid. If you’re quite impatient, or just enjoy dancing with the devil, you can haphazardly empty your egg yolks straight from their sharp shells into your steaming, sweet, sugar mixture. After all, it is your Lemon Meringue Pie.

Step Three: Add lemon juice, zest, and butter. Perhaps you add in twice the amount of lemon juice than normal because you crave the exciting bite of acid that puckers your cheeks and jolts your eyes awake from their blurry, coma-like state. Perhaps you use salted instead of unsalted butter because you miss the flavor of real, salted butter. You miss it when it was slicked, smeared and soaked onto a slice of toasted whole wheat bread, the oils lingering on your lips while you hunker down to watch reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond in the morning while the sun rises. You may find that you also miss your grizzly-bearded father who lets the pad of butter sit just long enough on the warmed toast to marinate it in the salty, greasy, and creamy spread.

Tip: There are no rules when it comes to baking; maybe you decide to add a little more of everything. Perhaps you add an extra dusting of sugar, or an entire carton of eggs. Maybe you decide not to separate from the rich yolks from the tangy whites, maybe you don’t separate the egg innards from the brittle shell at all. Your pie may have shards of shell scattered into the filling like crispy broken glass that prevent your hometown friends from chewing the pie properly. They may complain that the shells have been wedged between their teeth and their tongues are singed from the acid. Really, your new-found enthusiasm intimidates them in the same way a charging bull intimidates a blood-red flag. They wonder why you prefer a dessert as obscure as Lemon Meringue Pie to the boxed chocolate cake whose batter you used to slather onto your tongue using your finger as a utensil in high school. You aren’t affected by their comments, though; you’re excited! After all, it is your Lemon Meringue Pie.

The Meringue:

Step One: Beat together egg whites and cream of tartar on a low speed until foamy. Take a moment here. Dip your toes into the cool, transparent and glossy-topped egg whites. Allow the bubbles to wiggle and circle around your metaphorical feet.

Step Two: Once eggs are slightly foamy, you may begin beating at high speed while adding your granulated sugar. The amount you choose to beat and froth your egg whites should be left to your own instincts. When you decide to cease your whipping, your mixture may resemble a goey, shiny version of whipped cream. At this point you can stop, stick your finger in and contemplate the feeling: If it feels more like bubble bath foam you tossed around as a toddler than the half-eaten canester of marshmallow fluff you hid behind the box of Cheerios in your dark, childhood pantry, keep going.

Tip: Once you reach a certain age, you may wish to experiment with over-whipping your egg whites, turning the glossy, sticky, peaks of egg to a dry, crumbly mess, just for the sake of curiosity. Be warned, for afterwards you may mourn the loss of your wasted eggs. You may feel around in your pockets, fingers dancing with only a few nickels and dimes to buy more. Your mouth may taste of copper from the shock of adulthood and you may begin to wish that the metallic flavor were your body regurgitating more coins. Your knees may collapse to the sticky, skid-marked hardwood floor of your studio apartment in panic that you never really wanted to experiment at all. You’ve spent your whole life only baking standard Lemon Meringue Pies, why change now? The grievances you feel may manifest themselves into a well-rested brunette woman who sits across from you in an office chair draped with a calming light blue waffle blanket. You take turns speaking, and on your turn she listens to your egg story carefully so that she can file it through her robotic nervous system and emit a resolution. She does this for five sessions until you decide you’ll never again make Lemon Meringue Pie due to the possibility that you will over whip your egg whites, or cook your filling so long that it refuses to solidify inside the oven, or add too much water to your crust until it becomes a whopping sticky ball of regret. Maybe your fingers become so cold, colder than refrigerator cold, that you decide you’d rather shove them into the rough and linty pockets of the sweatshirt you got from the thrift store than into a bowl of butter and flour. Maybe you pull the hood over your head and keep your eyes averted to your toes sticking to the scuffed, sticky kitchen floor and focus on things you used to know, like boxed chocolate cake batter streaked onto heavy metal bowls that you used to scoop up by the glob on your nimble, bony fingers.