I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Chess pie is another one of those recipes that seem to have been around for a long time, and, as a result, no one can quite agree on what goes into it, where the name comes from or what it means, or where the recipe originated. Most recipes call for egg yolks, sugar and at least a pinch of cornmeal. Then the variation comes in. Most call for acid, but whether that's white vinegar or lemon juice is up in the air. Some call for dairy, but disagree on what kind and how much.

That, of course, provides great leeway and room for inspiration and improvisation. I opted for lemon juice, since I like lemons, more cornmeal than many recipes, and, in my broadest departure from canon, egg whites rather than egg yolks or whole eggs. I confess that part of the motivation for the egg whites was that I had extra whites I had laid in for a friend who was allergic to yolks.

With all those changes, calling it Chess Pie seemed disingenuous. So, being a medievalist, I thought of the Lewis Chessmen, which, coincidentally, just finished a run in New York City at the time of this writing. Thus, Lewis Chessmen Pie. Which is not entirely unlike a more standard Lemon Chess Pie.

• 1 pie crust made or purchased according to your usual practice
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 lb butter (1 stick)
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup egg whites (roughly the whites of 3 or 4 largish eggs)
• 2 T cornmeal
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Melt but do not cook the butter. A microwave is good, but only in short bursts. Separate out your egg whites and save the yolks for something else, like a tiramisu or hollandaise. Unless you cheated and bought just egg whites.

Mix everything together thoroughly. If you can see any lumps, you did it wrong - which is why your sugar needs to be soft and your butter melted. To be honest, it will still work and taste fine, but it won't look quite as pretty.

Pour into your pie shell and bake in a pre-heated 350F oven for one hour. Simple.

Be warned, this is a pretty sweet pie. The lemon, however, while certainly up-front, is not overpowering by any stretch. Nothing more to be said. Enjoy.