Professorial Brainstorm

I stumbled upon this recipe for Derby Pie by ZZ Packer. In the name of thorough academic research, I think we should probably bake said pie and eat it while talking about her stories in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. I'm prepared to bake one pie, and wanted to know if anyone else might be interested in bringing in another pie or something to go along with it. Here's Packer talking about her grandmother's kitchen and the recipe for Derby Pie, which originally appeared in the New York Times:

Derby Pie

By ZZ PACKER

Every Sunday after church, my grandmother's kitchen in Louisville, Ky., became a kind of depository for desserts. Female relatives and friends would drop off cakes and pies on her sideboard the way guests at a wedding fill up the gift table. Most were of the too-delicious-to-be-true black Southern strain: seven-layer caramel cakes, sweet-potato-and-yam pies, cinnamon-flecked peach cobblers or ''Sock It to Me'' cakes with a dollop of sour cream. My favorite was my great-aunt Fannie Lou's version of Kentucky Derby pie.

The Kentucky Derby is run the first Saturday in May, and in addition to bourbon-heavy mint juleps, hot browns, burgoo and other Kentuckified foods, Derby wouldn't be complete without Derby pie. (I should say so-called Derby pie, because by trademark, only Alan Rupp, of Kern's Kitchen Inc., can make a true ''Derby pie'' -- though to my mind, a batter of melted butter, egg yolks, flour, chocolate chips and walnuts poured into a pie crust seems as elemental and universally delicious as ice cream.)

My first time eating Rupp's ''real'' Derby pie came when I went to the Bristol Bar and Grill on Bardstown Road in Louisville as a teenager. Like my great-aunt Fannie Lou's pie, Rupp's is a veritable dessert casserole, and like a casserole, the pie must be served warm. Not sizzling, not tepid, just hot enough to be on the verge of melting, so that there is just the right amount of -- how else to put it? -- goo. And this ''goo factor'' is why reactions to the pie range from incoherent babbling to orgasmic moans. The yolky messiness of it transports you to some prenatal limbic state, evoking the euphoric feeling of licking cake batter from the spoon, eating raw cookie dough or stuffing melting s'mores into your mouth.

Official Derby pie is supposedly made with a layer of chocolate chips lining the bottom of the crust, the batter poured over the chips to keep them undisturbed and the heat of the oven baking the topmost layer so that it forms a kind of flaky-crispy crust. When you cut into it, you can see the sedimentary layers. I prefer my great-aunt Fannie Lou's version, which looks more like a cross-section of half-molten conglomerate rock. And hers is best enjoyed a day or two after it's baked, when all the ingredients have had a chance to work their magic on one another.

Though I've eaten many versions of the pie (some use pecans instead of walnuts, some add bourbon to the batter or make it less viscous with additional flour, some top it off with bourbon whipped cream), I haven't found any that improves upon Fannie Lou's. I do, however, expect that someday someone will subject Derby pie to the grand unified theory of Southern cuisine: ''If it tastes good now, it'll taste even better fried.''

Fannie Lou's Thoroughbred
(Almost Derby) Pie
[serves 6]

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup semisweet-chocolate chips.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the crust in a pie plate and prick the bottom with a fork. Cover lightly with a sheet of foil, pressing it gently into the crust and making sure the edges are covered. Place weights (metal pie weights or dried beans) on the foil to weigh down the bottom and hold up the sides of the crust. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove foil. Continue baking until the crust is firm and has lost its sheen but is not browned, about 5 more minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the butter, eggs and vanilla extract. Add the brown sugar and flour and mix until thoroughly blended. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the walnuts and chocolate chips.

3. Pour the batter into the crust. Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and place on a rack to cool. Serve warm.

ZZ Packer is the author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: Stories.'