The morning view from our porch

Sometimes the morning view from our porch is magical, the way sunlight captures my imagination and suggests a portal to another time and place. "Once upon a time" is a great way to start a fairy tale. "Reminds me of the time" is a great way to start family stories because that is the way I remember the stories being started by my great-uncles and grandparents. Great-aunts told stories too. They told stories in the kitchen that started, "Did you hear about?" and ended in a hush when they realized a young child, who repeated without censorship, was present.
My mother collected this recipe in her cookbook (copyright 2001) as a memory of one of those great-aunts.
Helen B. Dunn's Butterscotch Pie
1/4 Cup butter
1Cup brown sugar, firmly packed
4 Tablespoons flour
Pinch salt
2 egg yolks
2 Cups Milk
1 Teaspoonful vanilla
Place butter and brown sugar in a heavy skillet over medium heat until it gets bubbly all over. Mix flour and salt: add slightly beaten egg yolks and milk slowly, mixing well. Add to the butter and brown sugar, a little at a time: mix well. Cook until thick. Remove from heat. Add vanilla. Cool slightly. Fill baked pie shell. Top with meringue and brown.

As you can tell from those directions that a lot of skill and art went into making those pies. That baked pie shell had to be ready before you started. When is bubbly all over? Why won't it work if you just dump it all in together? Why? Why?

Whether it is a story that begins, "Reminds me of the time" or "This is how you make butterscotch pie, the unspoken beginning is "This is what experience taught me".