There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie.

I brought a coconut cream pie, Mom's favorite. Coconut's hard, dirty, shaggy exterior didn't promise much. But when you cracked it open and then cleaned it up, it surprised you with the smooth white riches inside. In a coconut shell, this was my mother's mission in life- to tackle the litter, the dust, the stains, the residue of life and tidy them all up. Her sweet reward was that exotic state of everything-in-its-clean-place, always a mirage in the distance while she was living with Helen. Coconut cream pie fed her soul.

The next day, Angelina was tending a fresh pot of red gravy on the stove. She was going to make Veal Parmigiana for dinner, to be accompanied by pasta, fresh bread, and salad. She left the sauce on low and went to put the finishing touches on the pie she had planned. Earlier, she had made 'a vol-au-vent'- the word means "windblown" in French- a pastry that was as light and feathery as a summer breeze, that Angelina had adapted to serve as a fluffy, delicately crispy pie crust.
The crust had cooled and formed a burnished auburn crown around the rim of the pie plate. She took a bowl of custardy creme anglaise out of the refrigerator and began loading it into a pie-filling gadget that looked like a big plastic syringe. With it, she then injected copious amounts of the glossy creme into the interior of the pie without disturbing the perfect, golden-crusty dome. That done, she heated the chocolate and cream on the stove top to create a chocolate ganache, which she would use as icing on the pie, just to take it completely over the top.

Thou has a thousand eyes and yet not one eye; Thou host a thousand forms and yet not one form.

When we think of classic American desserts, we tend to imagine apple pie and ice cream. However, the most classic American dessert of all might be the chocolate chip cookie.

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.