Tonight, Jay began teaching week one of a winter semester course at a local community college. He does this often, and although I miss him on the nights when he isn't at home with me for dinner, I take advantage of making smaller versions of meals that he normally would have some sort of aversion to in one way or another:
-- Anything involving mashed potatoes or dry beans
--Unstuffed cabbage rolls (cabbage casserole)
--Soups that aren't chicken noodle
-- Pasties
Be careful how you pronounce that last word, folks. What I'm talking about is pronounced (PASS-TEE). Don't pronounce it (PASTE-EE), or you're talking about something else entirely-- think tassels and ladies of ill-repute.
Stop it. Say it with me. PASS-TEE. PASS-TEE. PASS-TEE.
If you aren't from the Mitten State, or the northern Midwest in general, you probably have no idea what I'm blathering about. It's a delicious meat pie wrapped in a flaky crust and baked until golden. They usually contain potatoes, and the diehards will say that they must contain rutabaga. (ROOT-UH-BAY-GUH, or as some of my relatives say, ROOT-UH-BAGGY). I will save you the embarrassment of checking Google Images to see what one looks like. They look like this:
Pasties are an Upper Michigan favorite. They apparently originated in Cornwall, England, and came to our state with the copper and iron ore miners who came to this country to find work. The pasty was baked in the morning, and easily carried in a lunch pail to be enjoyed later in the day. Think of a giant, hearty, better-tasting lumberjack version of a Hot Pocket. If you have thirty-eight seconds of your life to spare, there's even a pasty song.
You can thank me later.
Why am I talking about this? Well, in our no-grocery challenge, we just happen to have a bunch of frozen pasty pies in our freezer. We go to the Upper Peninsula many times over the course of the year, and we buy dozens of these frozen beauties from Lawry's Pasty Shop near Marquette, Michigan, to bring home--and when I say "we," I most assuredly mean "me." Jay cannot stand them. Therefore, with him gone for supper tonight, I baked myself up a delicious pasty. So good.
Excuse me, I'm having a pasty drooling moment...
We have all sorts of delicious Michigan things in our freezer, pantry, and storage areas. We're all about eating locally produced things, and pasty pies are Michigan staple. Whether you eat them plain, smothered with ketchup (yes, please), or drowning in beef gravy (what are you, Canadian?), they are truly an delectable treat. I just have to convince my husband that I'm not crazy. It only took 14 years to get him to eat broccoli. What's the over/under on how long it will take him to like eating pasty pies? Probably never, but hey... more for me.
--SH