If you haven't already read 'The Legend of Lovebird Pie', please do. It's important that you do. It's important because you need to be prepared for the transformation that may come upon you after you eat a piece. You need to brace yourself for.... the love.... that may take ahold of you and force you to take ahold of your significant other in a way that you never have before. Your significant other may want to brace themselves as well.

I'm just saying, prepare yourself. You've been warned.

In all seriousness (yeah right) or even partial seriousness (that's probably more accurate) I will tell you the real story behind Lovebird Pie. My niece, Lovebird, daughter of Ladybird, is having her wedding shower this weekend. Ladybird has given a bunch of us recipe cards to fill out to make a special book for her with our recipes, and this pie is going to be one of my contributions.

(FYI: My niece's nickname was actually Lovebird when she was little. Sometimes you just can't plan how well this stuff works out.)

While picking strawberries the other day, I was inspired to try my hand at creating a strawberry meringue pie. In the heat and humidity of the strawberry patch I deliriously daydreamed of a pie that was sweet and red and delicious and topped with a fluffy cloud of meringue.

It also had to stand on its own. That's important to me... That a pie stand alone and not slop all over the plate. What's the point of going to all the trouble of making a pie if it's not going to look pretty?

Not that I haven't eaten and thoroughly enjoyed my share of enormously delicious, sloppy pies.

Because I have.

And they were good.

And I would eat them again. And again, and again.

However, if possible, I like to achieve a structurally sound pie. It's just one of my anal retentive tendencies.

Sorry... One should never use the word 'anal' when doling out a recipe. It's just not appetizing. I promise I'll never do it again.

Back to the pie.

This pie and the crust that goes with it are not hard to make. However, the process is a bit time consuming, and I figured out that if you jump around a little bit -- from filling to crust, crust to filling, filling to meringue, and so forth -- you can save yourself some time. With that in mind, I'm going to present this recipe to you in the order of events that keeps things most efficient, so I'm going to jump around a little bit.

Just trust me. I know what I'm doing.

Ingredient List - Filling...

• 2 Cups Cooked Strawberries
• 1 1/2 Cups Sugar
• 1/3 Cup Cornstarch
• 4 Egg Yolks
• 3 Tbsp. Butter
• 1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice

Ingredient List - All Butter Pie Crust...

• 2 Cups All Purpose Flour
• 3/4 Cup Butter (1 1/2 Sticks)
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 2 tsp. Sugar
• 5-7 Tbsp. Ice Water

Ingredient List - Meringue...

• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 4 tsp. Corn Starch
• 1/2 Cup Cold Water
• 4 Egg Whites
• 1/8 tsp. Salt

Before we do anything... ANYTHING at all, we need to do this: Cut up the butter for the pie crust (1 1/2 sticks) into 1-in. x 1-in. cubes, put it in a bowl, and let the cubes sit in the freezer for about an hour or so.

Now that the butter is where it needs to be, we can deal with the strawberries...

Thoroughly wash strawberries and remove stems. To end up with two cups of cooked strawberries, you'll want to start with about four cups (or more) of fresh ones. Place strawberries in a pot, cook and stir over medium heat until strawberries have broken down into a sauce. Set aside and allow to cool.

While the strawberries are cooling, we can begin to make the crust. However, there's one step we want to do before that...

Once we get to making the meringue, we will want the egg whites at room temperature. That's why it's a good idea now to go ahead and separate the four eggs, reserving both the whites (for the meringue) and the yolks (for the filling). Go on and do that and set them aside.

Go on.

Do it.

Done? Way to go.

I like to pretend you're actually listening to me. Just indulge me, o.k.?

Now we can make the crust. Get out your handy dandy food processor.

Go on.

Do it.

Just kidding.

Into the food processor, put the frozen butter cubes, 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons sugar.

Pulse in the food processor until butter is broken apart and mixture is crumbly and fine.

Add the ice water one tablespoon at a time, pulsing the food processor in between, until mixture just forms a dough. (Add enough water that it holds the dough together, but not so much that it makes it sticky.)

Sound familiar? If you've read or made my pumpkin pie recipe, you've seen it before. I love this crust. I love that it is made only with butter. I love that it rolls out really well and goes into the pie plate easily. I love how it tastes. It may be the only pie crust recipe I'll ever use for the rest of my life.

Separate the dough into two equal-sized balls. For this recipe we will only need one ball. This means you will have one extra ball. This means you will have to make another pie. This means you will have two pies. I know... Life is rough.

Put the ball of dough on a lightly floured surface (I like to use a pastry cloth, but I didn't have one so I just did it on the countertop and it worked fine) and dust the top with flour as well.

Roll out into a nice flat circle, flipping once between if needed, until just large enough for a 9-inch pie plate.

Grease your 9-inch pie plate with butter. To get the crust into the pie plate, first fold it in half, then fold it in half again, then pick it up and place it in the pie plate and unfold. Press the crust down into the plate and all around the edges.

Use a paring knife to trim the edges, then crimp or shape the edge into whatever style you would like (or none at all).

Now comes the baking of the pie shell and the method that I have come up with to keep the crust from slumping down in the pie plate. (I like well structured pies, remember?)

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Poke holes in the pie shell with a fork.

Next, give the pie shell a very light dusting of cooking spray.

That's right. You heard me.

Now, if you have one, place another (preferably metal) pie plate on top of the crust, like this...

This will help hold the crust in place as it bakes. I don't think I would do this with a glass pie plate, as it would be too heavy and I'm not sure it would be safe to put it in the oven without something in it. I had a glass pie plate shatter in the oven on me once, so I'm a little gun shy in that regard. However, in place of this method you could always use ceramic pie weights (available here) or dried beans to hold the crust down.

Do this however you choose, but whatever you do, choose one of these methods, or the crust will very likely slide down into the pie plate as it bakes and become all unsightly.

Not inedible, but unsightly.

Bake the crust for about 8-10 minutes. Remove upper pie tin (it will be steamy... wear oven mits). Place crust back in oven for another 2-3 minutes, until it is just starting to become crispy and golden.

While the crust is cooking, you can get the filling ready. Remember the cooked strawberries and egg yolks from before? Go ahead and grab those. You'll also need the sugar, cornstarch, butter and lemon juice.

Combine the 2 cups cooked strawberries, 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/3 cup cornstarch in a medium sized sauce pot. Cook over medium/high heat until mixture boils and thickens. Whisk the egg yolks. Add about 1/3 of the hot strawberry-sugar-cornstarch mixture to the egg yolks, whisk to combine, then add this back to the remaining strawberry-sugar-cornstarch mixture in the sauce pot, stirring all the while. Continue stirring as you cook the mixture over medium heat for an additional two minutes. Add the butter and lemon juice. Stir until butter is melted, then remove from heat. Pour filling into pie crust.

We're getting closer!

Only one more thing left to make... The meringue. This isn't my own meringue recipe, it belongs to Betty Crocker. I just think I should give credit where credit is due. Pie filling and crusts and such I can come up with on my own, but meringue is different. It's delicate. Meringue is one of the areas I need professional help.

I need professional help in other areas too, but we won't get into that right now.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. We need those egg whites that we cracked open and separated earlier. We also need sugar, water, cornstarch and salt.

We first want to make the 'meringue jelly', as I like to call it. Place the sugar, water and cornstarch into a small sauce pot, whisk together and bring to a boil until thickened, stirring as needed. Allow this mixture to cool. You can put it in a bowl and place it in the freezer to help it along a bit if you would like.

It's gelatinous and strange, this meringue jelly.

Once the meringue jelly has cooled, beat the egg whites and salt with a mixer until they just begin to form soft peaks. Then mix in the meringue jelly in three additions.

Continue to mix on high speed until meringue forms stiff peaks.

I'll be honest... My meringue didn't get very stiff this time. I think it's because I didn't allow my meringue jelly to cool down enough. It looked like this...

It was smooth, shiny and silky and formed peaks a little bit, but not like I know it's supposed to be.

See? I need professional help when it comes to meringue. I shall continue the quest. It still tasted good, so I was happy.

Next, spread Betty's meringue onto the pie...

One thing that I learned from Betty (Crocker) is that you want to spread the meringue to the edges of the pie so that it seals against the crust. This keeps the meringue from shrinking as it bakes.

Place the pie in the oven and bake until the meringue begins to brown on top, about 12 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours (but longer, if you can resist) before serving.

So pretty.

Lovebird pie... I loved it then, I love it now, and I will love it forever.

Now go getcha' some!

(Pie, that is.)