Lala vs.The Old Ladies

"Hey Laura, what'd you do this weekend?" I baked six freakin' pies for the fair. I do this to myself every year. In addition to pies, I also entered a chocolate cake, brownies and cinnamon rolls. I'm entirely too competitive. I get myself all worked up like a madwoman, foaming at the mouth, trying to find THE recipe that will kick the asses of little old ladies from all over the county. Never mind that they've been baking for like, 75 years, and their recipes are probably handed down from their mother's mother. Never mind that I've been baking for like, 3 years, and I haven't even tried half the recipes that I entered. In hindsight, that was a very bad idea. My apple pie was truly vile. And of course I don't know this until after the pie is judged. (It was the recipe for the winning apple pie in the American Pie Council cookoff--why even test it? It had to be good!)

My main objective in the pie bake-off is the beat that one woman. The One Who Cannot Be Beat. Her name is Nancy and she strikes fear into the heart of every exhibitor in the pie and cake category. No one can beat this woman and it's becoming ridiculous. But I had a secret weapon this year--her pie crust recipe! Bwhahahahahaha!! I used to work with Nancy at the music store before she retired. She's just the nicest lady ever and very generous with her recipes. I had never used her crust recipe before because I thought that it would be cheating, but this year I was taking no prisoners, by God!

Well, it turned out that it didn't matter anyway. Once again, Nancy smote all of us. It got to the point that people just stopped clapping when the judges would announce Nancy's first place pie. One woman just got up and left. Now, it would sound like we are a bunch of sour grapes and maybe we just need to learn to bake more proficiently. Yes, perhaps. However, the judges are the same obese, roly-poly, ex-home-ec teachers every year and know Nancy's pies! Once after taking a bite they said, "We know whose this is," in a sing-songy voice. Last year they opened up the whole competition with a five-minute monologue on how great Nancy is and how wonderful her pies are! Bullshit!! Foul, foul, foul!!!

So, you know what? I'm going to practice and feed my family pie all year, and then I'm going all the way to the top, baby. That's right--the Missouri State Fair. I demand justice!

Oh, here are the final results:

Chocolate Cake-3rd place

Brownies-3rd place

Cinnamon Rolls-2nd place

Peach Pie-2nd place

Blackberry Pie-3rd place

Blueberry Pie-3rd place

I was a little lonely baking this year, thinking about who should have been my bakin' buddy. I was about 10 or 12 weeks pregnant at the fair last year, and of course I was thinking ahead to how different it would be the next year.

Yesterday was Nate's six month birthday. Six months is such a cute age for a baby, and they change so much from when they are just born. It's so hard for me to imagine what he might look like now. Hmm..

Hey, Good News! I heard that Milo entered the world this morning! Congrats to Justin and Laura!!