Pie Talk #7: Shortbread

Good morning from the Amtrak, which I boarded at 7am amid lines of unsmiling people and one young man (not boarding) wearing one shoe and taking a full-body bath using the station’s hand sanitizer dispenser. I realize this is not a good image when combined with food, nor is the first story I read on the morning I wrote this, about yet another murder of a Portland-area woman in which both she and her seven-year-old daughter were killed by someone with a long record of violence (including murder). I have no idea what it will take for the criminal justice system to keep people who pledge murder in custody while they await trial. I am also not sure my writing about these events makes a whit of difference. My mother asked me more than a decade ago, “Why do you keep writing about dead children?” If I recall, I was a bit snotty in my response. (“Because there are enough people writing about Paris Hilton’s panties?”) I’m more somber now, and still writing, and speaking of, I’m heading back to Portland and will be at the Arlington Club on April 17. Come say hello.

Editor’s note: One podcast seems to have gone curiously unmentioned.

I recorded this fittingly short piece about shortbread in the library of the Reason magazine office in D.C. after a nice lunch of steak frites and rose with the magazine’s editor-at-large Matt Welch and editor-in-chief Katherine Mangu-Ward. I was sitting opposite this poster:

The night before, we attended the Pacific Legal Foundation’s 50th gala, ooh it was swank. Mangu-Ward mentioned at lunch that Rent-the-Runway, or one of those sites, had really upped the gown game for women among the, gosh, maybe 500 attendees. I’ll say! (Though I have no idea if those lovelies used that service.) I bought mine in 1995 for $30 from a loft above the newsstand on Melrose in West Hollywood. “These were my wife’s,” the guy said, opening the door to a room filled with hundreds of unbelievable dresses he was letting go for a song, something about a divorce.

Nancy Rommelmann @NancyRomm

Hot for liberty @PacificLegal 50th gala

This morning, I ate a finger of the shortbread before dashing out of the apartment at 6:30am, sustenance enough to keep you going until you have a proper meal, not a big commitment. Food52 promised this was the best shortbread recipe ever. They are correct, and because it’s easy to make (and keep for months in an airtight tin), the shortbread is an item you can have on hand. Everybody needs a nibble!