Inauguration Day pie

Or, in this case, Boston cream pie. That, I have decided, will be the Inauguration Day pie. We ate it all through college on the East Coast: dessert following Saturday night meals in the Ratty. It was the only reason to tolerate the turkey tet.

Boston cream pie. It reminds me of the people I met from across the country: black girls and guys from Florida and New Jersey, white guys from Mississippi, Japanese Americans from Hawaii, friends I made at school 3,000 miles from home. So many times, we talked and laughed in the dining hall.

It is fitting then, I think, as we welcome a new American president - one whose experiences and aspirations mirror our own, whose rhetoric and demeanor we greatly admire - to get to enjoy pie so good it is actually cake. Chocolate frosting, sweet cream, and soft, spongy cake. I will eat a slice with my morning coffee and turn on the television. I might even have seconds.