View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: For Mother`s Day, An Award-Winning Diner-Style Fresh Strawberry Pie!

When

we moved from Lodi to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last
July, I looked ahead at the 2009 calendar and pointed to
the dates that I knew I would miss my old home town the
most—between

Easter Sunday and

Mother`s Day when there`s water in the irrigation
canal and

strawberries everywhere.

Now,
of course,

I miss Lodi and my friends everyday. But, right now,
when a long cold Pittsburgh winter is reluctantly giving
way to a damp spring and I know the weather has warmed
up in the

San Joaquin Valley, my separation anxiety is at its
peak.

I`m
not helped when I remember that last year at this exact
time, I watched

Fido,

Sparkle and

Hoppy swim in the canal for hours. Then, when we
were done, I drove two hundred yards to pick up a flat
of strawberries, take them home and got to work in

my test kitchen.

Until
strawberry season in mid-June, I made

ice cream, sorbet, yogurt, jam and shortcake. And
the highlight dessert was a diner-style strawberry pie
that merits a prominent place in any Paris patisserie`s
window.

And I
guess

Pittsburgh will eventually have strawberries, too.
My neighbors tell me the season begins in late May and
lasts for the blink of the eye.

When I moved away, I
anticipated that one of the biggest drawbacks leaving
the Lodi would be not having access to all the fresh
summer fruit and winter citrus.

But I
badly underestimated the extent. During my first months
in

Pittsburgh, I found inedible peaches and plums,

cherries in plastic wrap packaged by the handful and
lemons at nearly a dollar each. To think, I had a lemon
and orange trees in my backyard!

I`m not sure what the
quality strawberries await me. But I do know that your
local Lodi berries are the top quality varieties that
are solid red through and through.

So in
honor of

Mother`s Day, I`ll share my diner-style strawberry
pie with all the

dads and sons out in readerville so you can make Mom
something with your own loving hands.

If you can cut a strawberry
in half, you can make this over the top classic.

Start with a single,
blind-baked, cooled pie shell. Don`t buy one in the
store if you can possibly avoid it. And here`s my
helpful kitchen hint of the day.

In my
previous food columns, I confessed to being

pastry dough challenged. What I`ve discovered
through continued experimentation is that the key to
success is not your rolling technique or your choice of
fat but instead the type of pie plate you use. For best
results use a unglazed dish (this
one) which for reasons understood by food
scientists— but not me—minimize the dreaded pie
dough shrinkage.

To begin your pie, use two
quarts of stemmed but halved strawberries. For the best
presentation, choose berries that have an identical
shape.

Prepare a glaze by putting
one cup of white sugar, two tablespoons of cornstarch
and one cup of boiling water. Simmer until thickened.
Then add one (3 ounce) package of strawberry flavored
gelatin and cool completely.

Toss your berries with the
cooled glaze. Then place the berries in a concentric
circle, flat side down and pointed ends toward the
center, starting at the center and working toward the
outer edge of the pie shell.

Refrigerate the pie until
it is set, from two to six hours. Then serve your pie as
soon as possible. Don`t refrigerate it. In other words,
eat the pie all up immediately. You won`t have any
trouble with that, believe me.

And
the best thing about your

Mother`s Day gift to Mom is that she will never
forget it.

Joe Guzzardi

[email
him]

is a California native who recently fled the state
because of over-immigration, over-population and a
rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He has moved to
Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the growth
rate stable.
A long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School,
Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It
currently appears in the


Lodi News-Sentinel.