This is Thanksgiving week and my mind is drifting back to a time when my grandparents lived and Thanksgiving meant a time for all the aunts and uncles and their children to gather at my grandparents' home for a special meal. The main course included a bird. One year my father had fattened a goose which grandmother dressed and served. Another year the meal featured wild quail which my father had shot and grandmother also fixed. Most years the meat was turkey.
There were mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberries, a variety of salads, sweet potatoes, frozen peas and dressing. As good as that all was, one didn't want to eat very much for there was also pie. Most likely pumpkin, sour cherry and mincemeat. Since it was Thanksgiving, it was okay to eat a piece of each.
In David Mamet's comedy "Boston Marriage," the character Claire says: "Yes, this shall be our party. And we must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie."
A New York Times article I read this week advised, Claire's sentiment can hold true for the baking process, too - even in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Making pie from scratch can be calming if you accept it for what it is: a deliberate building project that offers the tactile pleasure of working with smooth, cool dough. It takes time, much of it waiting, and ends with a dessert that tastes better homemade even if it isn't as picture perfect as one from the store.
The most intimidating part of preparing pie is the crust. The Times writer explained, "My sister said, 'It feels like failure waiting to happen.'"
That started reminded me of pie stories from the past. Pies were a challenging endeavor in my bachelor days but I tried. I perfected a pecan pie for church potlucks. The filling was easy and I cheated by buying ready made crusts.
A home extension agent shared with me a no-fail impossible pumpkin pie recipe in which all the ingredients were combined and in the baking process a crust was formed. Rita now uses a variation of the recipe with our homegrown butternut squash to make an excellent dessert we call pumpkin pie.
While on a trip to the Pennsylvania, I observed many roadside establishments advertising shoofly pie. I didn't have an opportunity to sample their pie but I did the next best thing. I bought a cookbook with a shoofly pie recipe.
Back home I followed the recipe and was disappointed when the pie turned out terrible. Convinced I hadn't followed the recipe, I tried again. After having four of the pies fail, I gave up. When this newspaper sponsored a cooking school at the Superior Auditorium, I told the presenter about my shoofly pie failure. She reviewed my recipe and advised it contained a mistake. When she finished her school tour, she returned home and mailed me her shoofly pie recipe. Following her recipe, I produced an acceptable pie. Since it was mostly fat and sugar, I didn't continue to make it.
I like custard pie but once bought a piece of inedible custard pie at a restaurant. When I paid for my meal, I told the cashier to have the cook throw away the recipe. The next time I visited that cafe, the waitress presented me with a piece of pie and said it was on the house. I quizzed her as to why and she explained on the previous occasion I had purchased the first piece of custard pie sold that day. After I complained, the cook tasted the pie and discovered she had forgotten to add an important ingredient like sugar. The rest of the custard pie was tossed.
When a student at Kansas State University, a class conflict had my lunch hour after the normal time the cafeteria served lunch. So the cafeteria workers would save me a plate for my late arrival. One day, one of the workers asked if liked cream pie. I said it was among my favorites and she confided they had made a lot of cream pie for that day but the pie didn't set up. Tasted good but it didn't look good enough to put on the line. If I wanted some, she offered me free pie with my lunch. I accepted the offer and I think she brought me an entire pie though it was just a big pile of something on the tray that didn't look like pie.
Once a friend was frantically roaming the supermarket. It was the day before Thanksgiving and she was to make the pies for the family dinner. What was she going to do for the store was out of pie crust? This year it could be eggs. Eggs are hard to find and expensive when found.
While delivering papers last week one of the people I talked with said she had a few chickens and four dozen surplus eggs and asked if I needed any. Had I bought the eggs and saved them to this week, I may have been able to resell them for a profit.
Wish I could have shared the Times article with the friend searching for pie crust as it contains Thanksgiving Day pie pointers. Hopefully The Times won't mind me reprinting portions of their story. It follows:
For crumb crusts: Form the sides first, then pat the bottom flat. For other pies, here are the Times' tricks that can take the fear out of making classic crusts from scratch:
1. Make dough ahead of time.
Chilling the dough for at least an hour, and ideally for a day or more, allows the flour to hydrate further. That resting time makes the dough easier to roll, more flavorful and less likely to end up tough.
2. Get a feel for the dough.
Rolling dough is like a dance: You have to sense when your partner - in this case, a disk of dough - is ready to move. If the chilled dough is too firm, it will crack if you press it with force. Let it sit for 10 minutes at room temperature, and your rolling pin will glide right over it. When placing the rolled round in the pie plate, you should feel the suppleness of it on your fingers and keep it from going taut. Gently lift and tuck the sheet into the corners to press it flat against the pan without stretching it.
3. Better blind baking
Blind baking, or baking pie dough before filling it, helps the crust stay crisp. Refrigerate or freeze the dough fitted into the pie plate until it's very firm. (The butter needs to be cold for a flaky, tender crust--hopefully this hint also works with my favorite lard.) To ensure that the bottom doesn't puff or balloon, dock it with a fork, lightly poking holes all over without piercing all the way through. To keep the sides from slipping and shrinking, the dough needs to be weighted down. Start by crumpling a sheet of parchment paper into a ball, then open it back up and press it against the dough. All those creases help the paper sit flush against the sides. Fill the paper-lined pie plate with dried beans or rice all the way to the rim to fully weigh down the dough as it bakes.
4. "Store-bought is fine"
If buying one eliminates the hurdle to homemade pie, great! There's a lot of happiness in pulling a pie out of the oven and serving it at Thanksgiving, no matter how you get there. And in the presence of that pie, there won't be any stress at all.
There you have it. And for our readers who didn't get a chance to read this article until after Thanksgiving, remember the Christmas and New Year's holidays are coming and your guests will all appreciate having pie on the menu.
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