maly, too: Pam Allen's Grapefruit Pie

Friday, April 11, 2014

Pam Allen's Grapefruit Pie

By RON MALY

It's been a pleasure having the husband-and-wife team of Reid and Pam Allen at our recent Free Pie Day experiences at the Village Inn restaurant in West Des Moines.

I've known Pam and Reid for many years, starting when Reid was the athletic ticket manager at Drake.

I've always maintained that Reid's crowd estimates at the Bulldogs' games were the most accurate in the university's long athletic history.

After one of our Free Pie Day excursions, Pam treated Mike Mahon and me to a kind of pie to take home that isn't on the menu at Village Inn.

It's called Grapefruit Pie, and it didn't last long once I brought it into my kitchen.

Later, both Mahon and I asked Pam for the recipe, and she was happy to oblige.

"Either you love the pie or you hate it -- so I won't feel bad if you're in the 'hate' category," Pam said to me in an email.

Well, I'll tell you, there's no "hate" connected with Pam's Grapefruit Pie.

For any of the rest of you who want to try it, here's the recipe furnished by her:

GRAPEFRUIT PIE

1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked (I used an already made graham cracker pie crust)

4 pink grapefruit

3/4 cup grapefruit juice (see below)

1/4 - 1/2 cup white sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin

DIRECTIONS:

Peel grapefruit, removing all pith, and cut out the individual sections. Cut each section up into bite size pieces. Drain in a strainer for 4 or more hours saving the juice. This can be done the day before.

Combine the sugar, cornstarch and 3/4 cup of the collected juice in a small saucepan. If the collected juice does not measure 3/4 cup, top it off with water. Bring to a boil. Stir in the strawberry gelatin. Cool to room temperature.

Spread the grapefruit pieces in the bottom of the baked shell and pour the gelatin over the fruit. Cover and chill. Top with whipped cream when serving.

ENJOY!!!!

*

MY BIRDWATCHING VENTURE

I wrote about Pam and Reid Allen in one of these columns several weeks ago because I recalled that they were among a group of central Iowans I accompanied on a birdwatching venture in July, 1991.

The paper was looking for offbeat activities in which Iowans participate, and birdwatching certainly can be classified as offbeat.

Because the birdwatching experience I had was 23 years ago, I mentioned to Pam and Reid that I'd forgotten exactly what I wrote about it.

I vividly remember the 19 consecutive seasons of non-winning football I observed at the University of Iowa, but I couldn't recall the nature of my birdwatching story.

I didn't have a clipping of the story, and neither did Pam and Reid.

However, a friend of theirs had a clipping, and made a copy of it for them and me. In the story, I featured Eugene Armstrong, a Booneville farmer who was regarded as the state's best birdwatcher.

Included in what I wrote:

"Birdwatching is an activity that involves statistics. The longer you're in it, the longer your list of birds. Armstrong said his goal this year is 300 species, and he already has reached 281.

"Birdwatching is done on the honor system. Reid Allen of West Des Moines compares it to golf.

"'Say you hit your golf ball to the left side of the fairway, and I hit it to the right side,' Allen said. 'We finish the hole. You shoot a 5 and I shoot a 6. That's what we write on our scorecards.'"

By the way, I took a photo of Eugene and Eloise Armstrong that accompanied the story I wrote for the July 8, 1991 paper.

Darn good picture of 'em, if I say so myself.

*

THE JASPERS & THE 7TH-INNING STRETCH

I think it was on the same day that Pam and Reid Allen talked about grapefruit pie that Reid gave a quiz to Mahon, who was Drake's sports information director for many years, and me.

"Do either of you know what a Jasper is?" he asked.

I thought maybe a Jasper was a bird that Gene Armstrong had maybe seen on a birdwatching venture, but I was wrong.

Actually, the Jaspers are what the athletic teams at Manhattan College are called.

Like Iowa Hawkeyes, Drake Bulldogs and Iowa State Cyclones.

The Manhattan Jaspers.

So how did Manhattan, which played in this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament, become the Jaspers?

Well, Dave Caldwell of the Wall Street Journal points out that "the nickname apparently originated with the college's baseball team in the late 1800s, which Brennan O'Donnell [Manhattan's president] understands first came to be called 'Brother Jasper's Boys,' a nod to the team's first coach.

"That coach, Brother Jasper of Mary, F.S.C., was the Catholic school's Prefect of Students, supervising the fans at Manhattan College baseball games while also coaching the team. He is also widely believed to have started a baseball tradition that continues to this day: the seventh-inning stretch...

"Brother Jasper of Mary was assigned to Manhattan College, where he stayed for all but one school year (when he was assigned to a school in Buffalo) until he died of 'congestion of the lung' on April 9, 1895. Brother Jasper is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Queens.

"Amy Surak, the college's archivist, said Brother Jasper was born Joseph Brennan in County Kilkenny, Ireland, on July 1, 1829. He moved to St. Louis, where he entered the Christian Brothers academy. He became Brother Jasper of Mary in 1851.

"'He was a tall, stout gentleman who was noted to be very kind and sympathetic," Surak wrote in an email, "but a strong disciplinarian.'

"As Prefect of Students, Brother Jasper was also the athletic director, band director, resident student adviser, head of the literary society and, most notably, Prefect of Discipline. Besides coaching the baseball team, he made sure that students in the stands sat up straight during the games.

"Brother Jasper started the school's baseball program in 1863, six years before the first pro baseball team was founded. In June of 1882, Manhattan was playing a semipro team known as the Metropolitans (not to be confused with the current semipro Metropolitans) in a park at 107th Street.

"It was a muggy day, and the students became too fidgety for Brother Jasper's liking. Entering the bottom of the seventh inning of what was said to be a close game, he called time out and instructed the students to stand and stretch their legs for a few minutes. He was pleased with the results and had the students do it again during later games.

"Brother Jasper's team also played exhibition games at the Polo Grounds against the New York Giants, and the Giants' fans joined in, launching a baseball tradition.

"President William Howard Taft, who weighed more than 300 pounds, would later be credited with creating the seventh-inning stretch when he stood from his rickety chair at a game in Washington on April 14, 1910..."

Brother Jasper, center, with the Manhattan College baseball team of 1886 Manhattan College/Wall Street Journal

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.