Goal 2 Introduction

Have you ever heard the phrase "Smart people learn from their mistakes, geniuses learn from others' mistakes."?  Well throughout this ELI I proved to myself over and over again that I might be smart... but I am no genius.  Part of this goal was to interview the women who work in the Pastry Department of the COOP... and I did.  However, no matter how much they might have told me... No matter what I read online about the proper way to do this or that... No matter that the cookbook itself might have WARNED me not to cut into the pie before it was cooled completely...  With this ELI I just had to make the mistakes themselves and learn from them the hard way.  Throughout this ELI I have made 14 different types of pies.  Several of them I actually made two of so technically I made 20 pies.  If you count top and bottom crusts of pies separately then I made 20 of my normal crusts and six cookie crumb crusts (not counting my failures).  Every single pie I made I learned something from; and it was always something different.  The following 13 posts (the last post combines two different pies) go over each pie and talk you through my successes... and my failures.  Even when there were failures though, it was just how I learned.  Every mistake I made was one more lesson.  If you're a genius then by the time you're done reading this you should be able to go out and make just as wonderful a pie as I can!  I don't know though... mistakes are part of the fun.  I'm not sure if it would actually be any fun to be a genius and just learn from everyone else.  It's more exciting to get cooking and make your own mistakes than read about somebody else's.  Even so, I've tried to make my posts amusing so hopefully you won't get too bored reading them.  ENJOY!