So how many pies can Pearl bake?

I wish I had kept a record of the pies I have baked since I came to Salluit. I certainly have made more than the national average for women who live alone. Every time there is a fund raiser in Sallulit some fool says : "Pearl can make pies". That fool is usually me. They are easy to make if you keep the numbers under a hundred for a day... slight exaggeration. When I was teaching high school we had major sales several times a year to raise money for the seniors to go out of the village. Because of the cost of ingredients they are expensive to make and expensive to sell. Luckily my parents subsidize these sales by sending most of what we need. I am a pure profit person when it comes to charity. Pecan pies go for $16.00 while apple, cherry and blueberry go for $12.00. Lemon goes somewhere in between because the Inuit love lemon pies so the market can handle a high price.

This past weekend the CGIT girls were raising money to buy their uniforms and register their group. I told Gladys that I would HELP. She wanted me to teach the 12 year old girls how to roll out the crust. I said" Frig that". Not exactly a CGIT phrase. But teaching someone to roll out pie crust and making pies for a sale are two different things. I had 2 girls are my home. I could roll out crusts as fast as they could fill them, crimp them and dust with cinnamon sugar. We had 9 beauties done in 45 minutes. We were doing blueberry.

Blueberry are dead easy: roll out the crust, dump in berries and sugar , flip the top on and on to the next. We wanted 20 pies at the end of the day. I also did two cherry pies as a donation to the cause from my own supplies. We had people lined up at the door before the pies were out of the oven.

Then yesterday I had a little electrial accident with my sewing machine. When I went to unplug the machine a flame 2 feet long shot out of the outlet. I had to tell the maintenance men who deal with problems in our homes. When they went to check the outlet, they replaced the plug on my machine without asking. What a treat. They could see the mountain of sewing I have yet to finish for Christmas. True wisemen.. it is the season. So when I came home from school I set to work making lemon pies for them.

Last year this time 4 of us gals made mincemeat for pies. We had a caribou roast to use. My mother always made her mincemeat with deer or moose. My parents sent up dried apples, as fresh would weigh too much and therefore be expensive. They also sent up everything else we needed ,including the liquide refreshment that made us rather jolly ole elves.

Speaking of old... older.... what ever the politically correct phrase is these days... one of my students asked me today how old I am. They are fascinated by my white hair. One of the boys yelled out "16". Then the entire class laughed like they were watching a Steve Martin routine. They had a real giggle fit.

We are doing a great deal of laughing these days. We are all so tired. The practising of the hymn for the concert goes well. Charlie Okituk is the loudest and of course he can't carry a tune in a bucket. His voice is so flat but he is so keen and is really trying. He is leading all the others off key..not that they were firmly on key. To-day it struck me as funny and I started to laugh. Then my helper Lissie started to laugh... then all the kids. Soon Charlie was singing alone. The laughing helps right now. We all need a break from school, the kids as well as the teachers. If any of you have a child in a concert soon , give the teacher credit for trying to do something that he or she may have no talent for at all. Concert technique is never part of an Education degree. Now if they wanted me to bake pies to sell at the concert............

Another short northern day is over.