Alone In My Nest: Will I Get This Monkey Off My Back?

So this weekend I find myself in possession of quite a few lemons. Thinking to myself what will I do with all these lemons? Now those of you that have known me for any length of time know that I consider myself a pretty accomplished baker. I would put my pies up against anyone's and be confident that mine would hold their own. That is except when it comes to the pie made with this dreaded fruit, yea, I'm talking about

The Lemon!

Here's the deal. Years ago my sister asked my mom in the presence of my Grannie what the secret was to a happy a marriage. My Grannie replied that it was all about cooking for your man and specifically, mastering the lemon meringue pie. (C'mon, give Anna Belle a break this was 40 years ago.) Easy enough, my sister thought, I can handle that. Handle it indeed she did. Colleen could make a bomb lemon meringue pie. Sadly, her marriage didn't last and she was always at a loss as to why as she had done everything our Grannie said she needed to do. Meanwhile I meet my Prince Charming who informs me that lemon meringue pie is one of his all time favorites. I waste no time attempting to add this pie to my growing repertoire of pies only to find that every time I make it, it is a disaster. The meringue is gummy, the lemon curd is runny or the crust is tough. I would always tell myself that it was okay that I couldn't make a proper lemon meringue pie because I had a happy marriage and if that was the trade-off, so be it.

Well after nearly 32 years I am fairly certain Mark isn't going anywhere and Lord knows he has had way more things to be pissed off about over the years than an inadequate pie. Still, I was haunted and just stubborn enough that I wasn't about to let it get the best of me.
So yesterday morning I spent the better part watching old episodes of "Good Eats" with Alton Brown in an effort to glean every bit of info I could about perfecting a lemon meringue pie. I listened as Alton talked about using only fresh lemon juice and plenty of zest. No problem, plenty of that to go around.

Feeling fairly confident I baked my crust the day before as Alton recommended so there would be plenty of time for it to dry out.

So after psyching myself up this morning I decide to tackle the beast. Everything is ready.

The lemon zest

the freshly squeezed lemon juice,

So I bring the laptop into the kitchen to tee up the Food Network website and get going with Alton's recipe. For 20 minutes this is what I kept getting as I attempted to log on to foodnetwork.com