The other day I had just finished a run when we passed by the park.  “Mama!  Can we stop?!”  My work was done for the day and dinner was cooked.  With the weather so unseasonably beautiful there was no excuse in the world not to.  When I was little I used to LOVE making mud pies!  First I would mix the flour (dirt), add milk (water) and then shape it into old aluminum foil baking tins my mother let me have.  I would set them in the sun to dry and about half way through I would get a stick and make lattice patterns on top.  Then, after they were baked and had “cooled” I would cut them into pieces and serve them at my fine dining establishment, the “Elle-Eh-Belle-Eh-Shangri-La.”  (It should be noted that even as child I had a love for French; this was as close to it as I could get.)  At the park when my little one started playing in the sand I brought her a stick and sat down with her.  Another kid spilled part of his water bottle in the sand and it triggered my memory.  Just like that my imaginary childhood fine dining establishment was reborn.  Soon we had a small gathering of about dozen little boys and girls all wanting to know how to make mud pies.  I gave them stirring instructions after someone procured a bucket.  They all worked together while I sought out something to use as a surprise special ingredient.  When I was a kid they had these horrid box shaped hedges everywhere that would stick you unmercifully and they produced red berries.  I hated them and that is the extent of my knowledge.  That and I was told not to eat the berries.  Anyway, I found these blue berries (juniper maybe?) and decided it would be perfect for our pie.  The kids whooped with delight as I dropped handfuls of them into the mix.  “It’s a blueberry pie!” my little one exclaimed.  For the better part of half an hour I watched at least three different races of children all smiling and working side by side on their pies.  How funny that something I loved so much as a child had been completely forgotten, packed away, and buried under the responsibilities of adulthood.  The British novelist John le Carré said, “Writing is like walking in a deserted street.  Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.”  This is perhaps one of my favorite quotes on several levels.  Thanks to my little one forcing me out of my grown-up mode, I rediscovered an old love.  But the best part will be turning over the running of my beloved restaurant to her.  Long live the Elle-Eh-Belle-Eh-Shangri-La.