A Million Dollar Lemon Meringue Pie 2007-08-01 (1)

Kristine Kidd, food editor of Bon Appetit magazine and author of five books, was intrigued by Million Dollar Baby, a Clint Eastwood film in which he plays a grizzled boxing trainer who befriends a down-andout Maggie Fitzgerald (Hillary Swank), an aspiring boxer looking to escape her "white trash" roots.

Throughout the movie, Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) is on the look-out for the perfect lemon meringue pie. Heaven, to him, is a somber gray place like Ira's Roadside Diner, where they serve "real" lemon meringue pie.

"Lemon meringue pie serves as a metaphor for perfection throughout the movie," says Kidd. "Anyone who is obsessed with a particular food knows how hard it is to find that food perfectly prepared. And in life, the quest for perfection is an impossible dream, but one we should all strive for."