26 Letters in our Alphabet

• I'm sure you've all played scrabble over your lifetime. The 26 letters of our English alphabet can be arranged in a total of over a million words in existence, 170 000 in current use and sadly only 20 000 to 35 000 used by individuals depending on, well er, their vocabulary.

  Who owns the alphabet? As far as I can see, it's an open source available to anyone who cares to string the letters together in any particular order that will give meaning to whomever reads them. So then, when strung together in this manner, I am currently the author of this arrangement of words. They are mine! Should anyone else copy them they are plagiarizing them.
• When I need inspiration, be it in my kitchen, my home, the clothes I choose, I look to others whom I admire to draw inspiration from. Like great poets, writers and painters, they too admit to finding inspiration from others who have gone before them. I can see an apple and immediately think of 27 different things to do with it, seeing a cherimoya and I have no clue. I'm a curious person; I have been all my life. I ask questions when I want to know the answers. My mom Linda tells me she was often ill-prepared for them - remembering when I was about 4 or 5 and wanted to know when our cat went into my cupboard one day alone and the next day came out with kittens. I was completely flumoxed. "Where did they come from?" I asked. "Inside our cat's (can't remember her name) tummy" was the entirely inadequate response. "Well how did they get in there? " I continued to probe. And now I know because my Mom told me there's a thin line up to heaven and that's how! I think she repeated the same yarn, I'm mean line, I mean explanation when our little doggie Mitzy died after getting billiary. Our doggie was buried in a hole in our garden. Again, curiosity got the better of me, I wanted to know why we were burying our little Mitzy in a hole in the garden. "So she can go to heaven", was the response. Not entirely convinced and a little older this time round, I quizzically looked at the hole at my feet then up at the clear blue sky - nope that won't satisfy me, "why are we putting her in the ground then when heaven is up there ? ". See above for the response.
• Now that I've established my level of curiosity at 4 and 5 I will tell you nothing much has changed since, and I expect I will continue to be curious and grateful that I'm not a cat. What has changed is my satisfaction of the answers I get. When I'm satisfied my curiosity stops, never for long though, because there's always a who, what, where, how, why, why not, or when question that skids into place begging a satisfactory answer.
• Maybe my search for answers is a way of keeping me safe and in control and I absolutely do like to be in control, but that's an entirely different rabbit hole we don't have time to go down. So now I've found my safe and happy place in my kitchen writing about my ramblings. I'm constantly curious about new and exciting food to eat or new ways to make it. Back to the apples, and how to make an apple pie. Well apples, pastry and tadaaaaa! Remember stringing letters of the alphabet together to create words and stringing them together to create sentences; well stringing apples and pastry together DO NOT CREATE the pie. It's the way YOU do it that makes it YOURS. On the other hand should you download a recipe for apple pie and follow the steps shared with you, then you will have made an apple pie, you will own the apple pie that you made but you absolutely cannot, never, ever, say it's your Apple Pie Recipe. When you develop a recipe based on Apples and pastry that's open source and you can then put your name on the recipe. When you develop a recipe inspired by your Granny's Apple Pie Recipe then it would be a moral courtesy to acknowledge your Granny when calling the recipe yours. So here's the rub, and it's not butter and flour together. If I change one ingredient in someone else's recipe does the recipe become mine? Are the lines blurred now because the exact sequence of ingredients is changed? Well let me tell it's hard to reinvent the wheel and, I'll tell you, an apple pie recipe too. Yesterday, my heart was desperately trying to mend itself, but I needed the help of an apple pie. My Kitty Cat, Aria had taken the line up to heaven and I needed to find a way to say goodbye with a proper tribute. All I could think about on waking, apart from the sunless sunrise, was the Granny Smith apples I had in my fridge. My Granny Peggy made the most memorable apple pie I spent my life searching for in all the wrong places. I found her recipe earlier this year that for a stupid reason I had never tried to make because everything was in ounces and not grams, in gas marks and not Celsius. Pathetic I know, but I think on a deeper level I probably knew I could never recreate the memory of the best apple pie ever. It's amazing the tricks our minds play. I did make her apple pie and I botched it up entirely. Yesterday, armed with inspiration from my Granny Peggy and a deep desire to stop crying I needed to get on and make that Apple Pie . It was a cathartic experience and it helped me process so many emotions. The caramel and pastry were already in my freezer for these such emergencies. The apples, the lemon, the brown sugar, the perfect pan size, the oven temperature all strung together to make a apple pie from my heart. An original, a first, one never been made before. Yes, sure I used the same ingredients that all apple pies have, but I strung them together in a line inexorably drawn up to heaven.
• Thank you Mom for reminding me about the story of the Cat in the cupboard. My inspiration for this story came from there . Yes you have definitely tasted Granny Peggy's apple pie, but my one isn't hers this time and yes inspiration for it lies solidly at her door.

  PS and Thank you to my Darling Husband and soul person Brian you waved your magic wand over these 26 letters of the alphabet without changing the essence of my story. Thank you, my life is beautiful with you in it

Prepare the apples

• Core Apples
• Slice apples into 14 slices per apple
• placed the sliced apples in a saucepan along with the sugar, lemon juice and zest. Cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes. The apples must hold their shape and not be mushy.
• Remove from the heat and stir in the maizena and zest. Set aside to cool

Prepare pâte sucrée

• you will need about 300 – 350g pastry 200g for the pie shell and 100 – 150g grated for the apple pie topping
• bake the 20cm pie shell for 15 min at 180ºC
• fill the case with the prepared apples and caramel sauce
• Topping – Grate the 150g pâte sucrée, add the lemon zest, sugar, mixed spice and almonds . Use a fork to gently mix altogether. Sprinkle the topping over the prepared apples and caramel sauce.
• Place the apple pie on a baking sheet and bake in pre heated 180ºC oven for 30min or until golden brown.
• Serve with whipped cream or ice cream whilst still hot Serves 4 -6 people