Is Pie the New Black?

I've been reading a lot about pie lately, how its popularity is soaring. A lovely new bakery, specializing in pies (appropriately named Four & Twenty Blackbirds) opened not far from my house. And there was even a pie contest last month in hipsterville Brooklyn, aka Williamburg, and *only* the first 50 pies would be judged. Who knew that there are so many pie bakers that the contest needed to be limited to 50. (I also can't believe that so many people want to run the NYC Marathon that tickets need to be won in a lottery, but that's another story.)

I couldn't enter the pie contest because I was working that Sunday, but I did decide to try my hand at lemon meringue pie. (The winning pie was a Shaker lemon pie.) I made it twice in the past few days. The first was gorgeous, but a failure as the filling never quite set, so we all *enjoyed* meringue-topped lemon soup. The second pie was much better, but I overbeat the egg whites rendering the meringue a bit tough. Plus, I had a fight with my pie crust and in retaliation, it shrunk in the pie pan.

I'm posting the second recipe I used, which was far superior. The filling was easier to make and was smooth and custard-y. Ironically, the pie soup recipe was published in a c. 1955 cookbook (where recipes, often subject to testing, are usually more reliable) but the successful one was hand-written in a composition book belonging to Ida Mai Van, a cooking school student in 1935.