Mmm Mmm - Gotta Love That Pie Mold

Pie mold. No, it's not the fuzzy stuff you find a week after Aunt Loretta sends you home with left-overs. Campers know what I'm talking about. Pie molds were all the rage in the Seventies--and they're still popular today. One of my favorite childhood memories is sitting around the campfire as a kid, feeling the warmth on my face, watching the flames dance, listening to the hiss and pop of burning wood, and smelling the acrid aroma that will linger in your clothes until their next washing. In this memory, I'm holding the wooden grips of a pie mold, keeping its cooking surface just above the hot coals on the fire's edge.

The Pie Mold was our campfire cooker, and a slick one at that. On the business end, two metal plates came together, sandwiching a creation of bread and toppings. Stick it in the fire a minute or two, pull it out, open it up, and wah-lah: You had a golden-brown pie filled with pizza fixings or cherry sauce or bacon and eggs or whatever else got your stomach growling and your mouth watering. It may not have been the healthiest of meals, but remember this is camping we're talking about. Save your salads and yogurt for home. When you're out in the woods, you gotta live a little.

There was a time I had forgotten this memory. High School and College have a tendency to erase some of your past, and for me the pie mold became a victim of that fate. I met a girl. We graduated from College, married, started a family--you know the drill. At some point in this process, I discovered something amazing: My wife's father makes pie molds. I'm not kidding. Talk about an uncanny way of reviving a childhood memory. Soon after I made this discovery, he told me the story.

Back in 1962, pie molds were around, but they were made of cast iron. The iron took forever to reach cooking temperature and it distributed heat unevenly. So instead of a golden-brown pie, you ended up with burnt crust and a lukewarm center. He had the idea that heavy-duty aluminum would work better. It would heat quickly, it would heat evenly, and it was light weight to boot. Not being a man to sit on the sidelines while another takes action, he called a foundry, invested in a pattern, and the Minute Pie Mold Company was born. As it turns out, he was right about the aluminum. The Minute Pie Mold outperformed the old cast-iron model in every way, and sales climbed as campers started using them.

Upon hearing his story, I called my parents, eager to see if the pie mold of my memory was a Minute Pie Mold. How cool would that be?

Well, I'm sorry to say my parents couldn't remember. It seems their divorce had put a damper on camping memories, and since a drop-down-drag-out custody battle over gear wasn't in the cards, that old pie mold was lost to the ages. But to this day, I firmly believe it was a Minute Pie Mold. Don't try to convince me otherwise.

So what's my point? Well, I'm not after free advertising for the Minute Pie Mold Company (although I'm sure you'd put a smile on an old man's face if you surf over to www.minutepiemold.com and take a peek at what I'm talking about) and I'm not trying to convince you that providence led me from an old campfire cooker to its creator's daughter.

What it does boil down to is this: Memories. If I hadn't married the daughter of a pie mold maker, I might have forgetten those campfire memories altogether. But I did marry the daughter of a pie mold maker. I do remember the campfire memories, and I did something about them. We have a campfire ring in the backyard and a whole set of Minute Pie Molds thanks to a generous family discount. Most important of all, the kids whoop and holler when we light a fire and break out the molds. They love pie mold nights. They're forming their own campfire memories, ones they will someday share with their children.

What childhood memories have you forgotten? Don't answer now. You can't. Afterall, they're forgotten. But if you slow down and pay attention, something will come back to you. And when it does, don't ignore it. Let it come back. Hold on to it. Remember it. Then take the time to share it with your children.
 

Toxic Mold & Disease

 

Asthma has increased 300 percent in children in the past ten years. Research by WHO, in Germany, finds prostate cancer, breast cancer, and other cancers increasing due to mold-related problems.

Mold is the number one health problem with one in every three persons affected by mold and one in ten with a severe problem related to mold. These can range from the common cold, tonsillitis, otitis, sinusitis, bronchitis, asthma, and pneumonia, to cancer.

Check your home's humidity levels; buy or borrow a hygrometer and watch the changes in R.H. that occur throughout a typical day in different rooms of the house and over the heating season. To inspect your home for mold growth, winter is the best time except for basements which should also be inspected in the summer. With a flashlight and some simple tools, go through the entire house, both inside and outside, searching for moisture damage and mold growth and their potential causes.

The Stachybotrus species of mold is dangerous; it will start growing in 80 percent humidity but, once established, can grow at 55 percent humidity. This mold can develop from the decay of building materials and is much harder to control. If more than ten square feet develop, it is advised that a professional clean it up. When you see a small speck of mold, that's only part of the problem - the remainder being inside the walls.

'Frog Page' is a manual of the health of the environment and states that frogs are declining because of mold.

Some of the causes of mold are brush and trees within 30 feet of the building; venting the clothes drier inside the home; furniture against outside walls; old fill, causing building movement leading to cracks causing water ingress; concrete will wick up water even to several feet above ground; ventilation not directed outside, such as the kitchen range hood, which should be vented outside; plants and aquariums; drying clothing indoors; standing water, such as keeping cold water in the kitchen sink; hot tubs; using several gallons of water to wash floors.

'Sick Building Syndrome' is caused by moisture and mold growth. It migrates through foundations up from the soil. A dehumidifier is not the final answer as it only does the air and not the walls. What is required is a combination of ventilation, circulation, and heat.

Carpenter ants and termites will smell moisture from miles away and they only attack damaged wood.

Ventilation alone won't help a crawl space. In the summer the vents bring in warm, moist air.

Mold forms on the coldest space. The only
way to deal with it is with heat. Wall heaters with fans are more efficient than baseboard heaters.

Pull furniture and store material away from exterior walls and off basement floors; leave closet doors ajar; leave bedroom doors open as much as possible; undercut doors; don't block or deflect warm air registers; open drapes, blinds, and curtains; set the furnace fan to run continuously. This will use more electricity but can be offset by installing a two-speed energy-efficient motor; don't cut off the heating supply or close off unused rooms.

Uninsulated or poorly insulated areas such as exterior corners or foundation walls, should be improved with additional insulation. Be sure to install an air-vapor barrier, usually polyethylene, on the room side of the insulation to prevent hidden condensation behind the insulation. Seal hidden opening into the attic, tighten the attic hatch, weatherstrip and caulk around windows and doors, gasket electrical outlets, caulk baseboards and seal the top of foundations. Using an air conditioner on muggy summer days also helps take out the moisture.

Humidifiers, dehumidifiers, air-conditioning units and filtration systems can be a source of mold growth if they are not regularly cleaned.

Key areas to check for moisture sources leading to condensation inside the home are roof leaks [especially at chimneys, flashings, skylights and eavestroughing]; wall leaks [especially at window and door flashing and sills]; foundation leaks [especially where the ground slopes toward the foundation]; and plumbing leaks [especially at toilet bases and under sink drains].

Check any fuel-burning equipment - furnaces, hot water heaters, boilers, fireplaces, and wood stoves - to ensure that they are venting properly. A blocked chimney could mean that combustion products, including large amounts of water vapor, are spilling into your house. Along with that moisture come dangerous combustion gasses, such as carbon monoxide, which cause deaths every year. Have heating equipment and venting systems checked by a trained service person.

If your moisture remedial work includes extensive air sealing, be sure that all fuel-burning equipment has an adequate supply of combustion air. High efficiency furnaces, for example, have their own air supplies and exhaust fans but conventional equipment may rely on house air for combustion and on 'natural draft' to move combustion products up the chimney flue. If starved for air or overpowered by an exhaust fan somewhere else in the house, such equipment can spill combustion gasses indoors. Examples of this include stains near the vent of a gas water heater, smoke entering the room from a wood-burning fireplace or stove, and pilot lights being blown out.

Mold growth often occurs in out-of-the-way areas like closets, corners, walls behind furniture and unused rooms. Increasing air circulation to these areas warms the cold surfaces and lowers local humidity levels.

To solve moisture problems, cover any exposed earth in a crawl space or basement with heavy polyethylene, sealed and weighted-down; slope soil away from foundations to keep basement walls and slab dry; patch any foundation leaks; don't use humidifiers, unless humidity levels are below 30 percent R.H.; avoid drying firewood indoors; operate bathroom exhaust fans during a bath or shower; use your range hood exhaust when cooking; avoid steam-cleaning carpets in winter; clean mold from wood and gyproc with a 10 percent to 30 percent solution of hydrogen peroxide applied with a spray bottle. This is more effective than bleach and water.

If you use chlorine bleach, mix one part bleach with two parts water and a little detergent to clean nearby surfaces. Leave for 15 minutes and rinse well. Use gloves and protective glasses and good ventilation. Badly mildewed carpets, furnishings and books will probably need to be thrown out.

Molds are parasitic micro-organisms that appear as black, white or multi-colored stain or fuzz. In addition to causing asthma, they can cause other allergies and serious health problems. There are tens of thousand of varieties of molds and are difficult and expensive to identify, even for experts. Health officials recommend eliminating all molds from inside your home.

Most mold spores need condensation or damp materials to germinate and once are established, many colonies generate their own moisture and can continue to survive even under dry conditions. They also need mild temperatures and a source of food, such as house dust or drywall paper.

Resources:

1. Natural Resources Canada [NRCan] "Air-Leakage Control" Pg. 11 [20 Feb 2002]

2.WHO [World Health Organization] [20 Feb. 2002]

3. Cormier, Dr. Y., Centre de Recherche, Hopital Laval, 2725 Chemin Ste-Foy, Ste Foy, Quebec Canada, G1V-4G5 Institut de Recherche en Sante et Securite du Travail (IRSST), Quebec Canada July 21, 1999; revised; accepted for publication November 26, 1999.

4. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/ [20 Feb. 2002]

5. http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/qa/105-10news/NIEHSnews.html [20 Feb.2002]

6. http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/FS/fs-043-01/
[20 Feb. 2002]

Margot B, Writer, Information Broker, Web Developer at
Margot B & Associates
mailto:margotb@wonderport.com
http://www.writers.Org-HQ.com