Lemon [Meringue] Pie

This summer my friend, Stephen, requested that I make him a lemon pie for his birthday. No meringue, just the lemon filling. So I committed to do that for his birthday present. Today was his birthday so I teamed up with my cousin, Breanna, to make his pie. We went to Wal-Mart for groceries (I'm sad to admit) and looked for a lemon meringue pie mix. We had no luck, even after asking a worker. So we went to Bi-Lo and had the same experience. We did manage to find some lemon filling in a can though, which I thought was rather strange. It was my only option, so I got two cans and two pie crusts and headed home to make the pies.

Breanna knew how to make the meringue without a mix (she actually knows how to cook...I just pretend to), but before she could start mixing the egg whites and sugar, she spilled a bunch of sugar all over the counter and floor. I grabbed our vacuum to clean up the floor, but apparently it doesn't do well with small granules. It scattered them all over the rest of the kitchen floor and into the living room. I was not impressed. I tried one of the smaller vacuums our landlord left in our garage. It did a slightly better job, but not by much. My feet were covered in sugar. This proved to be a problem when I had to run get something from my room. I tracked sugar all the way there, but thankfully the room is carpeted so by the time I came back out my feet were semi-clean. They got sugary again the moment I stepped into the kitchen.

By that time Breanna had the meringue ready and we assembled the pies, the one for Stephen with only lemon filling and the other for the rest of us to eat with both filling and meringue. Stephen's pie was finished, but we wanted the other pie to have that lovely golden brown look of perfection to it. We put it in the oven and started cleaning up (really just licking meringue off the electric beater prongs). I checked the pie once and it hadn't started browning yet. By the time we remembered to check it the second time, we smelled burning meringue. Breanna raced to the oven and yanked it open. I ran to all the doors and windows and flung them open. The smoke detector went off. I remembered why I hate smoke detectors. Breanna waved a tea towel under the device and soon it stopped its ghastly noise. We took a look at our ruined pie and decided it could be fixed. We peeled off the burned meringue and Breanna started to make some more. She let an egg yolk fall into the whites...then accidentally tipped the bowl. The egg splatted onto the floor. I cleaned it up and Breanna tried again. This time things went smoothly and we managed to get the meringue made and nicely browned. We put the pies away for lunch tomorrow then got to work cleaning up all that sugar. It was an interesting afternoon. That might be the last time I try baking for awhile.