Strawn's Eat Shop: Fresh Ice-Box Strawberry Pie

A family-owned restaurant, Strawn's has been serving hamburgers, fried chicken, and fresh ice-box strawberry pies since 1944.

The entire country was introduced to Strawn's since Southern Living Magazine featured its famous ice box pies in 1994 and 2003, and Food Network featured Strawn's yummy food March 10, 2003 on "The Best Of."

I was a high school junior when my mother and I moved from Livingston, Texas to Shreveport, Louisiana where my mother's family resided. That was back in 1967. On special Saturday's my friends and I would go to Strawn's on x Avenue and have a burger and pie. I always wondered why I bothered with the hamburger when all I really wanted was a slice of Strawn's strawberry pie.

Fresh Ice-Box Strawberry Pie Recipe

9 inch pie shell (already baked)
3 cups fresh strawberries sliced
1 cup sugar
3 T cornstarch
3/4 cup water
1/4 t salt
juice from 1 lemon
8 ounces of whipping cream
4 T. powdered sugar

1. Mix the cornstarch, sugar and salt in a saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of water. Boil the rest of the water and slowly add it to the boiling mixture. Add the juice of the lemon last.

2. Let the mixture cool then add the strawberries and pour into the shell.

3. Whip the cream with the powdered sugar and spread on pie. You should have about one inch of filling and 1 inch of whipped cream.

4. Refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Note: The only downside to the pie is that the crust gets soft quickly. This is not a pie you want to leave in the fridge for very long.