We did have, however, one primary goal. Was it to find out how we can help save the sea turtles? Was it to catch a giant tuna during a deep sea fishing expedition? Was it to snorkel in the continental United States’ only living-coral barrier reef?
No, I’m afraid it was none of those things. Our mission, my friends, was to find the quintessential key lime pie.
Our research strategy was quite simple. We ate out every meal, and at the end of each of these many meals (including breakfast), we ordered a piece of key lime pie. In the period of three or four days during which we conducted our research, we had some really good key lime pie and some not so good key lime pie. We ate some key lime fluff, some pie with filling the color of the green crayon in a box of Crayola Crayons, some pie that had the misfortune of being key lime custard sitting atop lime Jello. We had graham cracker crusts. We had pastry crusts. We even had chocolate cookie crusts.
Finally, towards the end or our trip, in a restaurant in the town of Islamorada, we took a bite of the piece of key lime pie we had ordered. We chewed, swallowed, and looked at each other with smiles on our faces. No question about it. This was the one.
After finishing our pie, down to the last graham cracker crumb, and with great trepidation, I beckoned to the server. She came over to our table and asked if everything was alright. I assured her it was. I then told her about the research we had been conducting. I informed her that, after a great deal of study, we had determined that this very restaurant offered the best key lime pie we had tasted in our visit throughout the keys.
She smiled modestly, and seemed pleased. I cleared my throat, and in a very serious tone, I asked her if there was any chance that the restaurant would give me the recipe. No doubt there were secrets they would be reluctant to share. A special orchard that raised organic key limes. Goat’s milk from animals raised without hormones or antibiotics. Ground-up seeds from the wiki wiki plant found only in the jungles of the Dominican Republic. Eggs gathered from chickens that had free range of a little-known Caribbean island and lived off of key lime seeds. And no doubt the pie took hours to make as the sous chef squeezed hundreds and hundreds of the aforementioned tiny key limes.
“Sure,” the server said without a moment’s hesitation. “You can find it on the back of a bottle of Nellie & Joe’s Key Lime Juice. It’s in every grocery store in the country.”
Sure enough, I went into the first grocery store I saw and found Nellie & Joe’s Key Lime Juice, and there was the pie recipe. What’s more, the recipe consists of a grand total of four ingredients, including the pie crust.
And she was right. I am able to find Nellie & Joe’s Key Lime Juice at any grocery store I have ever visited in every state in the union (to be honest, I haven’t tried Wyoming).
I am serving dinner to a friend and her two-year-old twins tonight, and I am making a key lime pie for dessert. Should she ask for the recipe, I think I will simply wave my hand and tell her it is way too complicated to make when you are the busy mother of twin toddlers. Here is the recipe, exactly as found on the lime juice bottle:
Nellie & Joe’s Key Lime Pie
One – 9” graham cracker pie shell
One – 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
3 – egg yolks (whites not used)
½ cup - Nellie & Joe’s Key West Lime Juice
Combine milk, egg yolks and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Pour filling into pie shell and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Allow to stand 10 minutes before refrigerating. Just before serving, top with freshly whipped cream and garnish with lime slices.
Now if you don’t want to feel too guilty, you can make your pie crust from scratch and actually use fresh whipped cream. I, however, buy the pie crust and use frozen whipped topping. I do let my husband top the pie with whipped topping and call him my sous chef.
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