Hey, Big Boy

When I was a teenager in suburban Cincinnati, going to Frisch's Big Boy after the basketball game was a Big Thrill. In a Happy Days kind of way, things were always happening at Frisch's: Natalie J. might be throwing her shoe at Lucky W.'s windshield (she'd caught him flirting with that ho, Pam E.); Mike B. might be cruising through in his metallic blue Corvette (if only he didn't smell so bad); or I might be lamenting that that the other Mike B. was probably never going to think of me as anything more than a friend. In those days, I'd usually sip a chocolate malt and have an onion ring or two, but frankly, there was little time for eating in between all the drama.

But years before that, when I was in pigtails and shiny white go-go boots, my mother and I would sometimes head to Frisch's for a bite to eat (although we never ate in the drive-in ... sigh). Just thinking about the hunky Buddy Boy or the tantalizing Brawny Lad still makes me lick my lips. I was even taken by the Big Boy (something a wee bit odd about these names, wouldn't you say?), although back then, I'd have scraped off the tartar sauce. And for dessert -- no counting calories when you're 9 -- there was a gooey hot fudge cake or an impossibly glossy strawberry pie.

And so, dear Readers, I present you with this week's entry: an Impossibly Glossy Strawberry Pie, a la Big Boy Restaurants.



The recipe comes from Rose Levy Berabaum of The Pie and Pastry Bible, complete with her own memory of Big Boy Restaurants. I don't think I've ever made a real strawberry pie before, although I assure you that now I have this recipe in my possession, I'll make it again and again.



And while I'd like to tell you that I made this from fresh local strawberries, I didn't. The quart of those that we bought from the Amish farm disappeared long before I got around to making the pie, and so I had to settle for California imports. They were the typically gorgeous fat berries and fortunately, this time, they were atypically tasty.



Here's the link to Berabaum's recipe forStrawberry pie, compliments of Epicurious.