Peach Pie

My worn-out, taped and tattered copy of Atlas Shrugged.

I stayed home this evening to bake my first-ever pie! I had been eyeing the recipe from Smitten Kitchen for peach-creme fraiche pie, so this afternoon I finally went on what turned into a shopping spree at whisk. I intended to buy the necessary baking tools that I lacked, and ended up buying my much-anticipated pizza stone, as well as the A16 Cookbook, which I have heard so much about.

Anyway, I'm glad that I didn't make big plans for the evening, because it took me more than a few hours to get through this pie, with many breaks of course. It's cooling now.

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In other exciting news, I spent my breaks in between baking polishing off the final pages of Atlas Shrugged. The book is 1168 pages long and I received it on my birthday last year. I can't tell you what it felt like to see these words:

There might be a chance that I still lean towards The Fountainhead being my favorite of the two, but I have to say: that climactic scene at the Institute is unlike anything I've ever read before. I could only compare it by calling it cinematic. It was like seeing real-life superheroes. Unbelievable.

And on that note, I am ready to move this behemoth of a book from my nightstand to my bookshelf. But, not without a few parting quotes:

+ "Drop your guns," said Rearden. "You don't know why you're here. We do. You don't know who your prisoner is. We do. You don't know why your bosses want you to guard him. We know why we want to get him out. You don't know the purpose of your fight. We know the purpose of ours. If you die, you won't know what you're dying for. If we do, we will."

+ "One of these centuries," said Danneskjold, turning to them for a moment, "the brutes, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute force encounters mind and force."

+ "Dagny!--he heard himself crying soundlessly--Dagny, in the name of the best within us! He was jerking at futile levers and at a throttle that had nothing to move...Dagny!--he was crying to a twelve-year-old girl in a sunlit clearing of the woods--in the name of the best within us, I must now start this train!"