Ice Milk and Pie

Photo of a Holiday Meal at Grandma Opie’s House March 1966. Grandmother Opie first on left followed by 3 year me in grandma’s lap, brother Marshall, Aunt Dot, Randy, Mom, and Dad.

After presents, food, and fellowship at Grandma Duers’ house, we next drove down to 80 Depeyster Street in North Tarrytown to do Christmas at Grandma Opie’s house. Both my grandfathers had died before I came into this world. My Grandma Duers lived alone and my Uncle Robert Lee Opie (Uncle Bob) and Aunt Dorothy Opie (aunt Dot) lived with my Grandma Opie. I associate pies with Grandma Opie in addition to a couple of other food items like her request for me to go to the local Grand Union (now a Walgreens) and buy “ice milk.” I soon found that the folks in the store knew no more what ice milk was than I did. Somehow over time I learned to speak her language and translate her down south idioms like ice milk into vanilla ice cream and retrieve the right item from the store. Grandma Opie had a heavy southern accent and she cooked southern pies too. The mincemeat, rhubarb, and sweet potato pie represented three classic southern pies she baked on holidays like Christmas. When you walked into the door the heat of oven and delicious smells of baking pies just slapped you in the face. Grandma Opie did not consider it overindulgent for her grandson, now in sixth grade, to have a slice of each with some “ice milk.” I thought it appropriate to share sweet potato and mincemeat recipes with you all. Sweet potato pie is still common in any African American or southern restaurants. But mincemeat pie is rare. I can’t share Grandma Opie’s recipes, because she did not write them down. She was old school and cooked out of her head and a heart filled with passion for cooking

Mincemeat pie recipe with photo: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img.timeinc.net/recipes/i/recipes/sl/03142008/mincemeat-pie-sl-520311-l.jpg&imgrefurl=http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn%3Faction%3DdisplayRecipe%26recipe_id%3D520311&usg=__OthJv7f6WdIjyrnU77NWj5IsNFk=&h=300&w=300&sz=35&hl=en&start=3&tbnid=kmZof6xF8RGmTM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmincemeat%2Bpie%2Brecipe%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

Sweet potato pie recipe with photo: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/sweet_potato_pie_with_pecan_topping/