Pastry Crust

Hey Amanda,

So I was basically apoplectic this week because I've got some ridiculously strong (but actually quite moderate) views on abortion. I bottled up all of my rage and righteous indignation and this was going to be my outlet. And... after sitting on my half-written post for a few days I decided that one, you and our readers are probably up to your gills in abortion opinions and two, it's just not the right time to talk about it. At least not online. Give it a few weeks and I'll give you a really beautifully researched, science-based post about abortion. But today I'm going to talk about pie-crusts.

The crust is a lie. 

Have you ever eaten a pie with a shortbread, cookie, or graham cracker crust and thought, "You know what would make this pie even better? A pastry crust." The answer is no. Because no matter what idyllic world you live in, where jupiter is in your sign and Nathan Fillion is guest-starring on Psych (one could only dream)---pastry crust is always disappointing. It's either mushy, hard, or over-done in patches. Maybe a combination of all three. In the rare event that the crust looks flakey and soft and is a color of gold that only exists on the French Riviera, it tastes like a bland piece of toast.

Not my best work,
but considering I didn't have a mouse or real editing software....I'll take it 

Pastry crust is essentially begging to be a metaphor. It's like having a date to dance. You want it so bad when you're hardcore third-wheeling, standing beside each of your friends in their elaborate hairdos, pinning on your own corsage because you're going stag. And somehow the next year you find yourself actually having the corsage pinned on by someone else, and...the night is about as good is was the year before. You left the dance early again, because you forgot that they still only play misogynistic hip hop.  There are no slow dances to Frank Sinatra, or clever banter as you sway with your date. You essentially have to yell "I have to pee!" directly into his eardrum, because the music is so loud it's vibrating your liver.

Pastry crust is working your butt off to write that amazing paper, practically living in special collections, flipping deliriously through the dryest writing imaginable, and then realizing at the end of class that the girl who wrote her paper saying that the French Revolution "killed a lot of people", also got an A.

Pastry crust is slogging through the last year of your undergrad, waiting for your life to start and realizing that life is more or less one, long slog punctuated by beautiful moments if you're not too catatonic to miss them.

Pastry crust is waiting to be happy. 

Don't wait to be happy y'all. Just pour some butter over some crushed nilla wafers.

Have a great Friday,
Stephanie

Photo credit:

Pastrybread.com