It was a good pie

Mike and I used to have friends over for dinner and pie on Sunday nights when we lived in Chicago. I love to bake pies (see this movie for all the crazy deliciousness that pie can be).

One Sunday I had baked an apple pie. Out of all the pies, this is the most labor intensive to make. It’s a lot of peeling and a lot of very thin slicing. The pie crust is my grandma’s recipe (Looking for a good apple pie recipe? Let me know and I’ll send it to you).

I made the pie in the late afternoon, and for safekeeping, i.e., out of the reach of certain canine inhabitants, I put it on top of the refrigerator in the pantry to cool. Claire and Charley were visiting the downstairs neighbors’ Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Bo was hanging out at home with me having recently been banished for bonking the freakishly large Rhodesian Ridgeback Taylor on the head in an exciting and nail-biting match of canine wits. Hours later, I went to get something out of the freezer and tragedy struck. The apple pie tumbled to the ground, landing facedown, of course. Alas, there was no way of saving the pie. Thinking that there was only one way to make the best out of this miserable situation, I got a fork, called Bo into the kitchen, and while I ate the portions not touching the kitchen floor, Bo ate those that were. I cried a little bit, but it was a perfect exercise in symbiotics. And it was a pretty good pie if I do say so.

Potatoes & Onions

Bo came to us by way of Iowa, where he had been kept in someone’s front yard on a chain. I believe this life hardened his stomach and gastric accoutrements into steel. To give you an idea of his size, his head, if hollow, could have comfortably slept two Chihuahuas, plus bunk beds. Bo provided hours of entertainment for us, not all of it food-centric. He inspired a line of crocheted hats that I make for my husband, Bobo Hats, because his poor ears flopped down on top of his head and made it easy for him to wear a hat.

One day Michael and I came home with friends Chris and Dan in tow. As we entered our apartment, everything seemed normal. We were greeted with the usual canine enthusiasm of Claire, Bo and Charley. We all settled in and very slowly things started to come into focus. Like when you are looking at something and it all seems fine until one little detail stands out and alerts you that something is terribly awry and you become increasingly more alarmed as your eyes adjust to the scene. Little flecks of reddish brown littered the floor, creating a trail from the living room into the kitchen.

Chris shifted in his seat on the couch, which made a crackling noise, and then extracted an empty, chewed through bag that screamed “IDAHO POTATOES 10 POUNDS.”

We followed the trail into the kitchen, but alas, nary a potato did we find. Upon entering the kitchen we also discovered an empty bag - ONIONS 5 POUNDS - the dry crackling skins sticking to the walls due to winter’s static electricity. Now that I think back on it, I cannot come up with a good reason to explain what I was possibly doing with 10 pounds of potatoes and 5 pounds of onions.

It’s interesting – if you look up toxic foods for dogs, onions make the list. One would assume that a whopping five pounds might have a disastrous effect on a dog. Even in a 175-pound dog, one would assume that 5 pounds of raw onions would at least cause some sort of gastric distress. And that’s on top of 10 pounds of potatoes. I mean, come on – 15 pounds of raw vegetables?!? But I believe Bo did sleep well that night.