Grape Crow Pie or Hello, My Name Is Blank And I Spend Too Much At CostCo

The other day I met a very nice lady who is a professional organizer.  As you can guess, I tend toward the antithesis of both “professional” and “organizer.”  Although, I do seem to be improving with age. Anyway, the nice lady said to me that CostCo is a deceptive place.  She said most of her clients have a problem because they go there every month, buy too much stuff and don’t have room at home for their purchases.  In the name of saving money they are sowing the seeds of their own disorganization.

Of course, when someone tells me that other people have a problem, I automatically do a brain scan to see if I have a similar affliction (attention deficit disorder?  No, but comte cheese is sometimes a problem for me) and then my superiority gene kicks in and I go on about my day thinking, “Well, I eat too much comte cheese, but at least I can pay attention to details...now where’d I put that cheese?”   So, when the professional organizer brings up habitual CostCo shopping I automatically want to blurt out, “I only shop every six weeks at CostCo, I can store the stuff I buy because my rule for the semblance of organization I do keep is if you don’t have a bunch of stuff you don’t have to organize it (though architect Mies van der Rohe put it much more succinctly) and they have the most comte cheese for the best price per pound anywhere!”  But I hold myself back and silently spin into my usual state of denial.

I am confident, almost cocky, when I go to CostCo the next day after meeting Organizer Woman.  I even went with a weekly meal plan in hand.  I specifically  chose to go to CostCo because I was spending money at Target (my true disease, but I did have a list) and CostCo is next to Target and I didn’t want to go to a third store for groceries. I was planning, for once, to save time and money. Now, that’s organized.

Two meals hinged on pine nuts (flank steak coated in pine nuts and a pesto with farmer’s market basil that was soon to expire).  I also needed milk boxes for Bartleby’s school lunches.  I came out with neither (shame on me for waiting on the milk boxes until the week school starts) and I was still $150 lighter than when I went in.  Normally, I wouldn’t care.  I’d think that as usual, I’d done really well at the warehouse.  But this time, Organizer Woman must have scrambled my brain with her micro-organizing waves or something and I felt really cheated. 

CostCo used to sell huge amounts of pine nuts for pennies on the dollar. Not that day.  Maybe no more. I left with a pounds of California seedless table grapes, spinach, carrots, flank steak, dried mushrooms, bread, pasta (ravioli for grownups and fish-shaped ravioli for kiddos), petite cucumbers, Go Gurts, mini-humus packs (for Bartleby’s lunches) eggs and cereals.  Not one stray item, not one extra treat (OK the gourmet dried fruit may have been excessive)!  And now, I had to do something with it all and I had to hustle or I would waste my “savings”.

The carrots I dispatched to a pot of boiling water so that The Baby Whose Name Is Not Phoebe could eat them.  The mushrooms, spinach and flank steak became Sauteed Mushrooms, Spinach and Flank Steak (a recipe so self-evident I won’t bother to describe it, just remember dried mushrooms must be soaked about 30 minutes in warm water before use). The grapes, however, were especially troublesome because of their size and quantity. Like the Goblin fruit from the Rosetti poem (look it up) I was in danger of becoming their victim.  I packed up a bunch for my babysitter to take.  But she forgot them.  I packed up another bunch for my mother to take, but she forgot them as well.  There was only one thing to do...make them into pie and then eat the pie as penance (as you may know, it’s that time of year for us Jewish folk). 

Because the pie comes out a grapey black I’ve name it Grape Crow Pie.  And it’s really good.  Not a hard penance, just a little strange.


Grape Crow Pie

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Take about 18 graham crackers and make a crust to thickly fill an eight inch pie plate.  I’m going to assume you know that graham cracker crust consists of crushed graham crackers and melted butter and you know the steps to preparing it.  It does help to have a five-year-old who likes to hammer, but make sure to seal the ziplock tight. 

Once the crust is in the pie plate, pre-bake it at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes and leave the oven on for later. Now, start on the grape filling.  In a large pot, pour about 1/4 cup of pomegranate or grape juice, add about a pound or more of large, black, seedless grapes (the ones from CostCo are truly lovely), bring to a boil and reduce to simmer, covered about 15 minutes, then uncovered for a bit, until you have very soft, mushy grapes and some liquid left in the pot.  Pour the grapes into the crust and let cool for a minute.  Sprinkle about 2 Tablespoons of confectioners sugar over the top.  Return the filled pie to the oven.  Bake until your kitchen smells sugary or the top of the pie has turned dark and glossy, about eight minutes.  Allow to cool slightly before serving warm. 

It will taste like plum pie, but grapey, and the crust will soak up the fruitiness and become delightfully mushy.  If you had pine nuts, you could put them on top as a garnish.  I did not, needless to say, have pine nuts.