filling

I had it all planned out. I was going to give you a thousand word piece on the history of canned pie filling, from its invention by DuPont during the Great War to the special fillings of peace exchanged this year aboard the International Space Station.

Two problems. The first is that Wikipedia doesn't have an article on canned pie filling for me to crib from. Look for yourself. The closest I got was this. Words fail me.

The second problem is that I had pies of my own to make.

I didn't stand in line to buy the original iPhone. I waited until there was a decent software unlock before I bought one. In the six years since, I think I have used my phone as a timer more frequently than I have used it as a phone. I love it. For all its foibles, Siri just sweetened the deal. The summer of iOS 6 was the summer of my content as Siri timed all my barbequeues. I hoped iOS 7 would erase my top problem with iOS.

I had my iPhone on me when my daughter was born. I pressed a few buttons from the delivery room and I set up a three-way cellular call for the first time in my life. It was easy. Both sets of new grandparents would hear the news at the same time. The marvel of that call, however great, was overshadowed by the joy of parenthood. I haven't set up a three-way call since.

As we fast forward from the original iPhone -- before iOS even had a name -- to the majesty of today's LTE enabled fingerprint reading speech recognizing 64 bit iPhone 5s, one feature key to me got left on pause. the iPhone has one timer.

i'm using a Cook's Illustrated apple pie recipie this year. This one features apples in a pile more prominent than the one in Christopher Kimball's throat. The recipie is great but it features a series of time line gymnatics that only a Time Lord could love. Step four -- fool around with apples then preheat oven to 425. Step five -- spend an hour rolling, chilling, and filling crusts. I don't know how long it takes to preheat an oven with contributions from viewers like you, but my ordinary GE oven gets the job done in a few minutes.

I somehow wound up trying to time three things at once. A chill step on my phone, a second chill step on the timer built into the oven, and a third thing I thought I would do on my phone. "Siri, set another timer for thirty minutes." "your timer is already running. Would you like to change it?" "Siri, do you mean to tell me that you can understand my voice but you can't keep track of two times?" "I'm sorry. I can't answer that."

I understand that free meals at work is the default mode for many folks in the Bay Area. Most of the rest of us use fire in our houses to cook food. More people cook food in a day than use Facebook. I use my phone in the kitchen constantly to check recipie details or to time steps. With Siri, I can do much of it without grabbing my phone and then re-washing my hands. it's awesome.

Apple, could you please do for multiple timers what you did for multi-way calls? Thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.