Bitchin' Bette's Blueberry Pie

Sometimes bad situations have happy repercussions. Such is the case for my friend Claire who, when visiting her last living cousin Bette in Maine, enjoyed an incredible blueberry pie.

Even though they’d been invited, Bette didn’t seem all that happy to see Claire, yet was very pleasant to Claire’s sister Kathleen. Claire could do no right in Bette’s eyes, and was criticized for the most minor infractions. The visit became so unpleasant that Claire and Kathleen packed their bags in the middle of the night and escaped before dawn, but not before she secured Bette’s recipe for an amazing blueberry pie, now renamed in honor of that challenging weekend!

Personally, I can claim happier memories of blueberry pie. For a number of Augusts in the 1980s we used to take our kids to a relative’s farm in East Corinth, Vermont. Betsy’s (not to be confused with Bette of Claire’s recipe story) family owned hundreds of acres with a huge yellow farm house, a big red barn, and a couple of ponds, all carved out of a pine forest at the top of a mountain. On this farm there were cows and chickens galore. The rule was that while we were there (three moms and twelve kids, from infants to early teens!) there was no TV. It was before cell phones and texting so no TV meant the kids had to find other ways to entertain themselves. Books were read. Cows were mooed at. Chickens were fed. Picnics were shared. Tennis was played. Hikes were taken. Art was created. Boats were rowed. Charades were performed. S’mores were eaten, wild blueberries were picked, and pies were baked. It was magical and those times created some of the happiest memories of all our children’s lives. I fondly remember, too, that when the kids went to bed in what was referred to as “the barracks” Betsy, Carolyn, and I broke out the wine coolers and red licorice! We indulged in a color-coordinated social hour! Actually, most nights we were so tired that we spent a few minutes together folding clothes, laughing about the day’s activity and then crawled into our respective beds.

While wild blueberry season is months away, I’m posting this now. Buy some blueberries in the produce section or save this recipe for the waning days of summer, and create happy memories of your own.

Bitchin’ Bette’s Blueberry Pie
by Claire

1 pie shell, precooked
4 cups blueberries (fresh)
¼ cup water
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp. corn starch
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. butter
Pinch salt

Put 2 cups of the raw berries in the cooked pie shell. In a saucepan on medium heat, combine the remaining two cups of blueberries with the remaining ingredients; cook until thick. Cool a little. Pour over raw berries in the pie shell. Refrigerate.

Top with whipped cream or ice cream before serving.

Illustration credit: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/ILW/ILW004/small-bunch-blueberries_~ungerj0055s.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fotosearch.com/ILW004/ungerj0055s/&usg=__KK42kbRfRPJcxntpdxyQEOoujsc=&h=283&w=300&sz=20&hl=en&start=21&tbnid=v5AroxrcRLfLWM:&tbnh=109&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphotosearch%2Bblueberries%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20

If you have a recipe story you'd like to share, and a photo if you're so inclined, please email it to me at jeddy001@hotmail.com. I'd love to feature your recipe in my blog.

Tomorrow's blog ~ shower cakes!