A pie unlike any other

This is a peanut butter cream pie, and it's a damn good peanut butter cream pie at that, but that's not why I made it. In fact, when I pulled the pie out of the refrigerator and carefully peeled back the aluminum foil to cut a slice for my best friend, she remarked, This doesn't seem like something you would normally make. She's right. I'm much more of a cake- and cookie-minded gal, preferring my desserts with a moist and densely woven crumb. When I make pie, I go for something else entirely, relying on the old trope that if something has at least as much fruit in it as it does butter and sugar, it has to be good for you. On my own, I probably would have never made this pie.

A little over a month ago, on August 7, I was absent-mindedly scrolling through my Twitter feed when I saw something written by Shauna Ahern, also known as The Gluten-Free Girl. It said, "Sending every hug and ounce of love we have to our dear friend Jennifer Perillo tonight. Darling friend, there are no words." Something inside my heart dropped, and I went to Jennifer's page, hoping not to find what I already knew I would. There, the words no one, not even a stranger half a world away, wants to see: "He's gone. And my heart is shattered in a million pieces." Over the next few days, I learned that Jennifer's husband Mikey died suddenly of a heart attack. I felt what many across the blogging community must have, a sense of deep sympathy for a person I do not know and will never meet, but whose loss reverberates inside of me with a haunting and painful echo. What unfolded in the course of that week was an outpouring of love and support from bloggers and restaurateurs all across the country, as Shauna asked us all to do what we know best--take to our kitchens, against whatever odds, and share with those that we hold dear. So just like so many others, I made a pie for Mikey, for Jennifer, and for all of the people who have passed and will pass through my kitchen.

I meant to write about this a month ago, amidst all of the momentum that arose when a group of passionate cooks and bakers came together to care for someone they love (no matter how many steps removed from that person they might actually be). A lot of people wrote about their own experiences making the pie (I loved my friend Lindsay's post, as well as Shauna's), and I felt blessed to be able to share in their processes of mourning and outreach. I found myself stalling on writing something of my own, though, perhaps because I couldn't really pin down what it was I was feeling. I don't know Jennifer, but her story made a deep cut inside of me. Before I knew it, a month had passed, and while I had been mulling over the whole experience every day, I hadn't written a word. The more time that slipped past, the more I felt that I had somehow missed the window to talk about the pie, about the meaning of community, and about loss.

And then, quite simply, I remembered Jennifer. I am still young, and I have never experienced the loss of a partner like Mikey, with whom Jennifer shared so very much. But I thought of my friend Travis, who passed away when I was seventeen, and whose death I carried (and carry) with me in the months and years that unfolded since. It wasn't just those first few days that were hard, and grief manages to sneak up on you in the most unanticipated of moments as you begin to build a new life from the pieces you can salvage from before. A month passes, and all you can think is, No, I don't want to stop talking about this. In some ways, it gets harder with the more time that goes on, because your loss doesn't go away even if the outreach becomes less immediate, less concentrated. You want to scream, and to demand that everyone stay focused and remember. The words so rarely get easier to find, and what starts as a scream in your head emerges as a sigh, or as tears, if it manages to emerge at all. These are the moments when I want to send all of my love to Jennifer and to everyone like her who has experienced such a shattering loss. I want her to know that I still think of her, still think of the soft sweetness of her peanut butter pie and the beautiful smiles it brought to the faces of my friends who tasted it. And I want to thank her, for all her candor and courage in the weeks since Mikey passed away. I hope the love and support from those first few days continue to find her and her daughters in the long road to come.

For a recipe for this peanut butter cream pie, I'll send you straight to the source: Jennifer Perillo's blog. Her writing is beautiful, and anyone who has loved someone who was taken too soon will find comfort and resonance in her words.