Editor's Note

I learned everything I know about cooking from my father. Scrambled eggs. Oh, I also do a mean hard-boiled egg. And I'm famous for my instant oatmeal.

So, you might be able to imagine the shock and awe among assembled intimates last holiday season when I announced that one of the desserts had been prepared by none other than moi-self, and not just any dessert, but a sacred one: pie, the comfort food of all comfort foods.

Okay, along with the shock and awe was a little bit of skepticism, maybe even a pinch of outright terror, but I fear no contradiction when I say: That pie rocked. Every last slice vanished, to a chorus of moans fit for an adult Web site.

What was my secret?

Sweetened condensed milk.

That, and Kermit's Key Lime Juice, which has a recipe on the label that even a complete incompetent can't mess up. Plus, making it takes, like, two minutes. So the attention-span thing isn't a problem.

Ingredients:

9-inch graham cracker pie crust

2 14-ounce cans sweetened condensed milk

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup Kermit's Key Lime Juice (actually, any authentic Key lime juice will work)

Preparation:

Blend milk and egg yolks at slow speed until smooth. Add Key lime juice and finish blending.

Pour into pie crust. Bake in preheated 300-degree oven for 15 minutes. Cool pie 20 minutes before refrigerating. Serve chilled pie with whipped cream.

If you've only tasted the alleged Key lime pies sold in grocery stores and roadside diners that are food-colored bright green, this version is downright revelatory.

But enough about me. I want to hear about your pie.

In 2004, the American Pie Council (which I'm not making up) and Crisco released a survey claiming that the average American consumes six slices of pie per year. Which is puzzling, because, as one newspaper writer noted, the average American appears to consume six slices of pie at Thanksgiving dinner.

This is the time of year when we, as a culture, are as pie-focused as we ever get. So now seems a propitious moment to announce The Washington Post Magazine Holiday Issue Pie Contest.

Just send your most killer pie recipe -- and, because you clearly are less inept than I am, it has to be an original recipe, instead of one off a label or out of a book -- to postpie@washpost.com. Include your name, as well as your day and evening phone numbers. We'll try out finalists' recipes and present the winners in the 2008 Holiday Issue.

Tom Shroder can be reached at shrodert@washpost.com.