The Apple Pie of Apple Pies

There’s your mother’s apple pie. Your grandmother’s apple pie. Apple pie from the corner café you remember as a kid. And then there’s the apple pie. The apple pie that is more than pie, that represents the institution of apple pie that we cling to as tradition, birthright, and the very foundation of the statement “motherhood and apple pie.”

I have been so fortunate as to have been given this pie of pies by a friend for my birthday.

The pie is known as apple cider pie. It’s delightful anyway you slice it, but best served warm, with a scoop of premium vanilla ice cream. No words I put down here can adequately describe the sublime perfume that gently rises from this dessert, truly fit for the gods themselves. I can imagine Saturn, god of the harvest, eyes closed in rapture, hunched over a slice like the one before me – a deep slice layered with apples, baked in earthenware, and arrayed with the fragrances of fall.

I can’t tell you what is in this masterpiece, but if it were possible to take a bite of late October,
not as you remember it as a child,
not as the best October you can remember,

but the October that you never thought could be possible,
the October you see in pictures by Norman Rockwell and Joseph Leyendecker,
the October imagined in poems by Robert Frost,
the October you wouldn’t have dared to dream, because the thought of something so painfully beautiful might make you cry – it’s that October.

Close your eyes and imagine a gentle sweetness that comes during the few seconds of light an autumn sunset casts on the glowing leaves of a sugar maple just before dusk, when the air is crisp and your heart is light -- imagine enjoying that for the time you can enjoy a slice of pie, and you’ll know what I’m enjoying here.

I don’t know what she put in it. It’s magic to me, and that’s a good enough explanation.

Eat yer hearts out. I ain’t sharin’.

Rhubarb Pie

Often considered spring fare, there's little that can compete with a slice of homemade rhubarb pie in late summer. I just had some this morning that a very good friend made, served with good vanilla ice cream and fresh-brewed coffee.

While considered rustic by the uninitiated, rhubarb is the quintessential fruit filling for pie for several reasons.

Rhubarb is available throughout the growing season to gardeners who keep it watered. Fresh Ingredients = Pie Heaven.

Rhubarb has huge reserves of natural pectin. This makes for perfect slices of pie that not only hold together marvelously when cut (a rarity for fruit fillings) but have a special lip-smacking mouth feel that only natural pectins can provide, reducing the need for other thickeners. That naturally, juicy-thick texture is the 'mmmm' part of 'mmmmm-MM!'

Rhubarb is both very tart and sweet without the usually accompaniment of high-astringency. This means that expert pie-makers (like my friend) can tune their filling to the exact tart / sweet ratio they want. She tuned the filling to just to the edge of tartness making it pair perfectly with ice cream. Incidentally, that perfect sweet-tartness in your mouth is the 'MM!' part of 'mmmmm-MM!'

Wonderful as this is, it would all be for naught without a good crust. It was my great fortune to have been served rhubarb pie with a crust beyond compare. Golden, flaky, tender, toasty-buttery, flawlessly rolled, and perfectly done throughout - the bottom was just as deliciously firm and flavorful as the top. It simply does not get better than this.

One of my rules for life is 'Never turn down a piece of pie' and how doubly-cursed one would be to turn down home-baked rhubarb pie & ice cream at the height of summer when it's as good as this. Find some if you can; otherwise, eat your heart out.

Best bites,
James

Simple Pleasures of the Picnic

Not simply eating outside, a picnic is about tasty, portable food in a relaxing location. We'd been thinking about this simple get-away for a long time, longer than this season and how nice it would be to have a picnic. We packed our picnic basket, a family heirloom of my wife's grandmother, with simple dishes: deviled eggs made from this week's leftover hard-boileds, a pressed sandwich (bit of a flop), and homemade strawberry pie.

The eggs were an understated delight and probably could have easily carried the day on their own; no sandwich needed. I’d mention at this point, I’d never had a deviled egg until about five years ago. I am incapable of eating traditional potato salad (just can’t choke it down) and I thought they would be just like it. I had such fun making them, I think they might be a regular item anytime we’ve got the leftovers again.

The sandwich was a disappointment. Unable to find the bread I was looking for, I had to settle for a rustic semolina loaf that I normally adore, but which wouldn’t press down for anything. Added to this, I accidentally picked up a peppered brie instead of plain and this wasn’t to our liking either. The marinated sweet red peppers, double-smoked ham, goat cheese, and oregano were nice, but the big failing - too much bread. It looks pretty, but it’s not tasty. We picked out the middles to eat and moved on to the key item of the day: Fresh Strawberry Pie.

There’s not much needs describing. Light, sweet, juicy, and refreshing, the ripe June berries in the pie perfectly matched the kind of late June day we rarely get the Midwest: low humidity, 70s, and a light breeze. While we’d not been able to get our act together for a picnic for years, we lucked out with a stunningly perfect day.

Picnics are like little favors to ourselves. We’re going to eat a meal anyway, we can keep it simple and still make it special by where we choose to have it and the spirit with which it’s taken. The best part of today’s picnic rivaled even the pie; taking time for the sole purpose of relaxation.

As we lay back on our blanket, looking up at the kaleidoscope of maple leaves, thinking of the meal we had, the satisfied drowsiness we were half-heartedly fighting, I thought how it was only a short time ago we humans considered ourselves ‘indoor’ creatures. Maybe this was the way we were meant spend our time; certainly, it was easy to imagine we might be pre-wired to enjoy such repasts.

Maybe picnics aren’t get-aways after all. Maybe they’re get-backs. Getting back, at least for a bit, a pace of life that’s more human and more humane.

Best bites,
James