I did it. I took the plunge and made the first pie in this experiment. It was hard to choose (and impossible to get consensus) so I picked a pie I’ve always wanted to make; sweet potato pie. Since I’m a Yankee, all things Southern hold extra appeal for me, particularly Southern food. I tried a slice of overprocessed sweet potato pie at a restaurant once and liked it well enough to know that a homemade, from scratch version would be much, much better.

I made the crust with butter and shortening (no lard at Food Lion; the search continues) and it was flaky enough. I made chantilly cream to go on top and the whole mess tasted like heaven to me. The girl was happy; she likes pumpkin pie and this is very similar. The husband gave it a “meh” and the boy refused to even try it.

You guys have been great though, helping me on my quest for the lard and providing pie advice. Also; Patience, what the heck is a hog maw? No, never mind, I don’t really want to know. So I’m thinking about pie-blogging. Maybe on a different blog, maybe here, nevertheless it needs a name. Some thought starters:

• The Pie Chart
• Pie Nation
• Pie’d: A Journey in Crust

I have a feeling you’re much better at this. How about a contest? The Best Pie Blog Name suggestion will win a $10 Starbucks gift card. Contest ends at 10 a.m. Eastern, Wednesday, May 7. Leave your ideas in the comments and I’ll post the winner.

Thursday afternoon, my laptop for work started acting funny. I didn’t find it amusing. Friday, on a deadline, I was dismayed as it turned off, without warning, in the middle of my work. I got it to reboot long enough to do two things that absolutely had to happen. Then, I got the Blue Screen of Death. A call to IT walked me through more reboots and a dire pronouncement, “Ma’am, this is a very serious problem.”

I didn’t know that Blue Screen of Death was an official IT term. Now I know.

Geek Squad ran a $59 diagnostic. I dropped off the laptop about 5 p.m. on Friday and they called with the diagnosis by 10 a.m. the next morning. Now THAT’S good service! Unfortunately, the news was bad, as in, bad hard drive. Kaput. Kaplooie.

I’ve joined the hundreds of thousands of fellow bloggers and laptop-dependent folks who have had computer failure and gone through withdrawals as my laptop is on its merry way to the IT hospital. I’m lucky, I have a backup laptop on which to work this week but it’s not the same.

I know many of you will say, “Get a Mac!” but that’s unfortunately not an option. What’s the best laptop (lightweight yet durable) out there?

Even though I am on a quest to find lard, and obsessed with the idea of baking pies, I am still losing weight. I have dropped 11 lbs. now. How? I was inspired by Michael Pollan’s simple advice: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Now, that’s an uncomplicated philosophy I can live with. None of this South Beach/Weight Watchers/Atkins business for me. No counting points or weighing food, no special recipes or low carb prepackaged foods; just good food.

I’ve been eating a lot of plants. I’ve made more from scratch. I’ve invested more of my grocery dollars in the produce area and stuck to the perimeter of the grocery store, buying fresh foods and steering clear of anything, as Pollan says, “my grandmother would not recognize as food.” I am young enough, I think, that I consider my great-grandmother instead. Granny would love all the prepackaged stuff. My great-great grandmother, (Wait. I think that’s right. Maybe it was just my great-grandmother.) I was told, was a baker. Her name was Nelly. She had her own bakery in, what would have been the late 1800s. I think of her. Would she consider this food? What would she make of THIS stuff? Wouldn’t she be happy about my desire to create pies? Wouldn’t she be aghast at a woman of my age not having mastered this yet?

I’m walking more, but not very much. I binge walk (better than binge eating, I suppose) when I have time, going on a long walk on the weekends but not fitting it in during the week. I’m eating less, and trying not to skip meals, although lunch remains a challenge. Most of all, I’ve stopped using sugar. Before Lent this year, I would put heaping teaspoons of sugar in my coffee or tea and drink several cups every day. That adds up. I think this alone has made a big impact. I’ve also banned soda with sugar from the house. I will buy diet soda and we do drink it (we like the diet Dr. Pepper and A & W root beer) but I drink less of it, and more water. And tea with no sugar. I still drink coffee, and if I have to, I put Splenda in it.

So I’m not doing anything really dramatic. It’s a change, but it’s not painful. No one feels deprived, least of all me. I still bake, but always from scratch, and not as often. I have had cheeseburgers, frozen yogurt and one evil piece of store-bought cake at a friend’s baby shower. Other than that, I’ve been very disciplined; lots of vegetables, lots of fruit, skim milk, whole grains and lean meat.

I look ridiculous, though. My pants are all huge and hang off of me. I’m glad that it’s getting warmer because I have skirts and skorts a size smaller that I can wear. I celebrated by buying a couple of new dresses and when I wear them, I practically skip, I feel so good. You wouldn’t think 11 lbs. would make much of a difference but it does. I’m hoping to keep it off, and keep going.

Pass the plants, please.

At the Harris Teeter, I paused before the refrigerated case with the butter. I knew if I stood still long enough, an employee would ask if I was finding everything OK. They always do. An employee approached with the requisite question. I did my best Meg Ryan head tilt and asked, “If I were to be in the market for some lard, where might I find it?”

“Oh we don’t sell lard. Had to take it off the shelf. It’s bad for you, you know,” he said.

Inwardly, I snickered. Here we stood in a store that sells cigarettes, bacon, beer and wine, hundreds of products made with synthetic food materials and I’m being told a little lard has been taken off the shelves.

“What are you going to do with lard? Cook some beans?” he asked.

“I want it for pie crust,” I whispered, conspiratorily. “Please don’t tell anyone I’m buying lard.”

It occurred to me that it might be easier to buy illegal drugs than it is to buy lard in this community.

“HEY, JOE! WHERE CAN THIS LADY BUY SOME LARD?”

Oh jeez, now the whole store knows I’m the lard-buying lady. “You weren’t supposed to tell anybody!” I hissed, looking around anxiously for neighbors, kids’ teachers or my DOCTOR. The two employees pondered my dilemma as I tried to blend, chameleon-like into the display of “trans-fat free” margarine. “You probably want to drive out to a country store. No place in town is going to sell lard.”

BECAUSE IT WILL KILL YOU, I thought. “So drive out to some county where nobody knows me and go to a nearly deserted country store and there I will find the lard?”

“Yep. Good luck.”

I continue on my search for The Lard.

Amen.

By far, the most frequently asked question in my house is, “What’s for dinner?” Sometimes this is asked before I even get a hello. A friend of mine left me a voicemail at dinnertime recently and said, “You’re probably making a four-course dinner for your family right now.” (I was.) A neighbor, who recently started working from home, like I do asked, “Do you make dinner every night?” This kind of question kind of baffles me. Of course I make dinner every night. I eat dinner every night and I almost always make it. What do people do that DON’T?!

I know that lots of people eat out more often than we do. Heck, my own parents eat out almost every night. (Or possibly, every night.) I heard of a working mom who went out to eat with her family every night of the week. They went to all chain restaurants, and had a schedule. Something like this: Mondays, Applebees; Tuesdays, Red Robin; Wednesdays, Bob Evans; Thursdays, Chilis; Fridays, Pizza Hut; Saturdays, McDonald’s; Sundays, Old Country Buffet. The idea of this makes me sick. Think of the cost! And wouldn’t you just get so bored? I even hate it when we’re on vacation and road trips require a string of meals eaten out.

So yes, I cook. Almost every night. Sometimes I rely on frozen foods to round out a meal. Sometimes, convenience foods make it all go a little faster; items like pizza crusts, jarred sauces, pre-shredded cheeses, frozen meatballs and frozen vegetables are part of my weekly shopping list. I’m also pretty fond of the frozen biscuits and dinner rolls that allow you to pop just what you need for dinner into the oven and have them ready in less than 20 minutes.

Tonight, having been asked for the millionth time in my life that tired question, I Googled, “What’s for dinner?” and look what I found — a blog with daily recipes. What a great idea. Where do you go for dinner-time inspiration?