
The church's monthly potluck fell on a day before the Independence day. Therefore I decided to use red and blue fruits that resembled American flag. Since it is berry season, and I'd been over-using a lot of strawberries and blueberries, I decided to use raspberries and blackberries that time.
The day before, I had found a fruit tart recipe that has five stars following the title. I was excited, since that would be the first time I used sets of mini-pie pans my sister gave me.
Since I was busy writing my thesis that Saturday, I started the fruit-pie making very late. So late that I missed The Thistle & Shamrock, a celtic radio program broadcasted by WUOT, our favorite local radio station. Hubby and I went to grocery store after dinner, so I started cooking at about 9.00 pm. But I had a confident to be able to finish the whole thing not long after midnight...and I turned out to be wrong. Haha...

Making pie crust in this weather is very tricky. The pie crust needed to be cooled and has to be put back in refrigerator once it got softened. Since the temperature had been reaching over 80F, I had to transport the pie dough in and out the fridge frequently. The fact that I wasn't satisfied with the thickness of the crust made things worse. I rolled and unrolled the refrigerated dough several times until I got what I wanted. At the same time, a casserole pan was waiting to be filled. So, I juggled between finishing the pie crusts, baking them, washing and slicing never-ending summer squashes, making egg custard, washing and patting dry the berries, mixing the casserole ingredients, topping the casserole with herbed stuffing, baking the casserole, and assembling the pie.
The whole baking and assembling finally finished at around 3am. The morning I woke up, hubby was washing mountains of dirty dishes I left before I went to bed.
That Sunday at church, red and blue fruits dominated the dessert table. Among those, Issy, a sweet ten-year-old made tasty strawberry muffins, and that was my favorite one. I was happy to visually and emotionally experience the joy of celebrating Independence Day at church that day. Our church doesn't raise any national flag, and choose not to say the Pledge of Allegiance because we believe that we are the citizens of God's kingdom. Yet we are thankful for where God has placed us, and so thankful for the freedom of this country.