Pie

For those of you not interested in flat baked goods mounded with fillings, there will be a short entertainment at the end. The rest of us will be here in the laboratory doing science stuff with pie. The dark nights and cold winds bring out the baking gene in this northeast city, you can smell the golden crusty goodness all the way to Syracuse.

Actually, that's the General Mills plant where they toast Cheerio's and Lucky Charms. Drive by the loading dock, sparrows are rolling in the gutters too fat to fly from the spilled grains and flour. Sugar up, little buddies, that Cap'n Crunch will keep you warm in the strongest of gales.

However, I came to write to you today about pie, the preferred dessert in my social circles. Cake, yeah yeah yeah, usually dry with overloaded sugared frosting and needs a glass of milk to get it down, little nutrition, wheat, eggs, sugar, butter. It's okay, I haven't ever turned down a cupcake, but pie has no peer. Magna cum laude, is pie.

It ranges from savory pies such as tourtiere, chicken, and quiche to the light pies of meringue to the heavy workhorses such as a mincemeat which you wouldn't turn your nose up at if I made it. Make my own mince, (hitches thumbs in suspenders), and therefore avoid a lot of the icky candied citron that tastes like a lozenge from the bottom of grandma's purse last opened in 1940. Oh mince. While cooking it makes the house smell like Christmas in the European fairy stories and will drag Charles Dickens out of the crypt to sit at the table, if you are interested that sort of thing. It's that good.

I modified the Joy of Cooking recipe and leave out the suet, for god's sake I don't want to kill anyone. And the citron, a little orange and lemon peel is good, but no angelica. Ptooey. I use a round of beef ground twice at the butcher's, sour cherries, pounds of raisins and currants, walnuts, a bit of the aforementioned candied peels, brandy, apples, and a concoction of spices in amounts that could mummify a small animal. Here kitty kitty. My gosh, this is exciting.

The crust is made of flour and butter, salt. I heard on NPR that adding a titch of vodka to the crust in lieu of a portion of the H2O makes a finer, crisper crust, as the flour gluten reacts only with water, the alcohol evaporates and etc. Can't recommend it, went to the liquor store for a cheap bottle of vodka and my god what on earth these prices, could rubbing alcohol be used instead? No no no. But the science teases me, I know eventually I'll cave and buy a bottle and then I'll let you know if it works.

I do make a good crust (snaps suspenders, chews on a wheatstalk). Julia's recipe, and if you have to ask Julia who, well, get with the program. My apple peeler and I could get a pie inside the oven in twenty five minutes at one time. In Florida I squeezed those gigundo lemons for juice, mixed it with eggs and we lived on lemon meringue. Rhubarb custard sweetened with strawberries and oranges. Woof. Blueberry, straight laced sour cherry, raisin pie, Canadian butter tarts. Key lime. Coconut cream. Banana cream. Amish lemon.

The only disaster I came up with was from a southern gullah churchified pamphlet for cantaloupe pie. I'm sure it was my fault. The texture was too weird, the flavor sickish sweet. I'm sure you've had better luck. Let me know.

Well, of course all this pie talk has me a hankering for a wedge (spits---ding!), and I'll go dig out a bit of that mince I was caterwaulin' about prior to this here discussion. Oh, for all of you that stuck through this that really were not interested in pie, here is the promised short entertainment: 3.14. 22/7 (hyuck hyuck).

See you later, gators.

Sleep well, Charles Dickens. Sleep well, all.