Key Lime Pie. Fail.

I went to a lovely party just this past Saturday night.  It was yet another feast experience at Claire's apartment.  This time was to celebrate/mourn the loss of our community group leader to London.  She's headed across the pond for a year (or maybe longer) for work (or maybe more so, a boy).  Claire envisioned a wonderful indoor picnic theme and when we offered to help, she had some specific ideas of how to make her vision a reality.  One part of that was Key Lime Pie.  I offered to take that on.  I've never made one (so I can check another recipe off the New Year's Goal list!) and I knew my sister had a good recipe I could use.  The pie came together quickly and easily on Saturday afternoon.  I even got some fresh limes to decorate it with and I got to use my half-price pie plate that I bought during my annual Day-After-Christmas shopping adventure.  Once it was ready, I popped the entire pie plate w/ pie inside one of those plastic cake plates w/ covers.  This seemed to be the smartest way to go since I could put the pie in there without worrying about the top of the pie getting smushed and my decor ruined.  I was ready to go!

As I was stepping out my door, I propped the cake carrier with pie on my left hip, holding it with my left hand while I locked the door with my right.  At this time, the bottom of the carrier snapped apart from the top and the pie plate slid right on out.  Shattered pie plate and key lime gush was all over the entry way to my building.  I felt defeated!  I cleaned it up all the while coming up with a plan to quickly make a 2nd pie.  "I can do this!" is what I kept thinking.  I quickly texted the group (we have this awesome mass texting thing where you send a text to one # and everyone in our group gets it).  I told them the pie was gone, but I'd whip up another and be there only about 30 minutes late.  But, I quickly realized that I was missing two key ingredients.  There was no way I could pull this off.  So, I re-texted the group letting them know it wasn't possible, but I'd pick something up along the way.  I was determined to find us a key lime pie.  I quickly got on Google and started searching for places on the Upper West Side.  After calling a couple of places, I finally located a place that was open and had a whole key lime pie they could sell me.  Success was found at Cafe Lalo!  And it happened to be right on my walk down to Claire's place.  It was also a pretty tasty pie.  I still think mine would have been better though :)