You would forgive me if for sometime I would be posting an all-baked goodies won’t you? It’s not like that’s all I’d be posting just that I’ve been making every effort to bake and I missed it so much that I’m all over it.
This time I made Sweet Potato Pie.

You see that time I was contemplating on what to read and was browsing my bookshelf and found Two for the Road by Jane and Michael Stern. A couple, who according to Nora Ephron of The New York Times, “…write about food so simply and exuberantly that they deserve a room of their own in the Smithsonian Instiution.”
I hope I don’t get into trouble for this. I just wanted to give you an idea why i chose this recipe over what I already have. This exchange between Jane, Michael and Mrs. Bonner is something I might dread or not or booth, who knows?
Mrs. Bonner’s Sweet Potato Pie (page 181)
“Mrs. Bonner’s cafe was a restaurant without written menu. Mrs. Bonner went shopping every morning and cooked what looked good at the market, and when customers walked in and found a booth, she would size them up and decide what they ought to eat…”
Jane Stern had chicken and dumplings while Michael had smoked mullet. They declared that both dishes were excellent and so were Mrs. Bonner’s sweet potato pie. Here’s the recipe:
8 tbsp butter, softened (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups mashed sweet potatoes*
1/2 cup evaporated milk**
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp fine salt
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell***
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Beat in the eggs. Beat in the sweet potatoes, then the milk, vanilla and salt. Mix well.
Pour into the pie shell and bake for 40 minutes, until dark-red gold (if using orange or yellow sweet potatoes). Cool and serve at room temperature.
* I used purple
** I used full cream milk
***Recipe available in my Apple Pie post.

Let me tell you it was heavenly. Everyone I served it to said, “Whaa, how did she make this, it’s delicious.” Even Shem, who’s a precocious and picky eater shoved one forkful after another!
Mrs. Bonner’s method of sizing up what her customers would eat is something I wouldn’t mind trying. As long as the comeuppance grave or rewarding would rest solely upon the cook ( it doesn’t have to be Mrs. Bonner, anyone brave enough or confident enough will do).
I’ve always, always been generous with tips (as long as the service and food is really good and satisfactory) and I believe it is just proper to be so. I have a high regard to those who treat food and cooking with dignity and pride that a lot of restaurant staff seems to have forgotten. I’ve been duped many times before by advertisements that doesn’t live to its claim and have handed my opinion in a very plain and exact manner. ” Uh, excuse me but this not how it is described in your menu. It doesn’t taste good.” Like so, I didn’t say that when I ordered curry ( the stew version) I expected curry (it didn’t even taste anything like curry) not a piece of meat drizzled ever so lightly with a light yellow coconut cream sauce. Really, how difficult is it to make curry? if you can’t make that then don’t for God’s sake open a restaurant and serve curry. Curry/ How can they shame curry like that?! Needless to say, I never ate or even looked at that restaurant again. ( It was in Davao City, SM ground floor).
Why the rant? I had a dream about it! Probably because of what I’ve read from Table for Three, Please and Dessert Comes First. I was highly influenced to write about my opinion, so I did.
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