To set the record straight,

I made another pie. My second pie ever. I had to do it to prove I was capable, mostly because my family has pegged me as a non-cooker, and having Cara uber-Baker to compete with is a little daunting.

Well I had sworn off pies, but I did have all the necessary ingredients to throw another one together, so I made a quite nice coconut pie to take to my parent's house on Sunday. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say they were amazed by my incredibly tasty pie. I finally tasted some of it last night and _I_ was freaking amazed. Coconut custard pie, you complete me.

Here's where everyone went wrong when they doubted my pie making skills. You would do well to remember this information in the future when you doubt me... Also explains why I am always right :) ...

What I lack in baking experience or any other type of deficiency, I more than make up for in zealous internet searching and superfluous analytical reasoning. Let me explain using the case of the coconut pie. I spent a great bit of time first narrowing down what kind of pie to bake - like deciding no meringue for a first time baker, no peeling apples or fruit prep, etc. Plus I had to take into account the other kinds of pies I knew were coming, plus what I personally like to eat here in the Dirrty South, plus I needed to illustrate for my Ohioan coworkers what a coconut pie is, since they were very stuck on the concept of the cream pie. Second, I scoured the internet - both googling AND specific recipe sites, and looked at about 100 coconut pie recipes. Then I got rid of all the ones that needed too much prep time (more than 10 minutes) or were all uppity about using a homemade crust (just not ready). And of course, I read all the reviews for the pies I was considering on recipe sites, taking into consideration the wording of the comments to determine if I thought the commenters were smart or not, and thus determining whether I could trust their opinions on the weighty subject of pie preparation.

Final round - I finally narrowed it down to 2 coconut custard pie recipes and then I printed them both off and made my 4 immediate coworkers read them and vote for which one sounded better. Then I reread the 10 or so comments on that particular pie recipe and decided that I, too, would use an extra 1/4 cup of coconut.

Big time score!

Here's a picture my dad took of the pie - we'll have to work on food staging a little bit but hey, that crust isn't too photogenic. But, it was cooked perfectly on the bottom!!