# 249: P is for Pie

A very personal story today about me and Pie, plus the recipe for The Quintessential Apple Pie.

Aug 14, 2024

P is for Pie

My favorite P word is pie. Even it if has only three letters, it’s a very big word in my little world.

Since I was a little girl I have made a fair amount of pies. The aroma of an apple pie baking is one I grew up with and I learned at my grandmother’s elbow. But I went on overdrive in my late 40s when my wuzband asked me if I could make him an apple pie. Wanting to please I went in to the kitchen, got out the ingredients needed and set about to make one for him. While it was still slightly warm, I cut into it, placed a piece on a plate, added a fork, took it into his home-office and presented it to him.

His elevated stature in the food world was such that he knew food luminaries like Julia Child, Russ Morash, Sheila Lukins, Ruth Reichl, Jeffrey Steingarten, Dorie Greenspan, R.W. Apple Jr and just about every other A-list food writer and restaurant critic in the country so I wanted it to be the best pie he had ever had. After taking a first bite he put down his fork but instead of saying something like, My darling, you make the best pie, what I heard was, “Maybe you could work on the crust.” I was crestfallen to say the least but kept a stiff upper lip and didn’t let it show. Later, when I shared this story with friends, one said, “Why didn’t you just pick up the rolling pin and hit him over the head with it?” and my editor couldn’t stop laughing and said, “We absolutely have to put this in the book!” But, Pie is also a way to express love which is what I wanted to share in Art of the Pie so I left out that part of the story.

In truth, his words were like a gauntlet thrown down and for two and half years, on a near daily basis, I studied pie. I began with dough and lost count of how many pies I made...sometimes up to five different doughs in a day. I tried vinegar, vodka, and whatever ingredients and techniques authors specified. I learned about flours and their protein content, the 3-2-1 ratio of flour-fat-water, the differences of dough made with butter, shortening, off the shelf lard and freshly rendered artisan leaf lard. Each day I was swept up into my 10,000+ hours of learning and found it absolutely fascinating.

Meanwhile, the wuzband ate piece after piece after piece and, although he didn’t make pie himself, he freely shared his feedback with me. “Not light enough, not flaky, too dry, too greasy, this is like cardboard, the edge is too thick, the edge is too thin, this one falls apart, needs more…” At times I wearied from his comments and occasionally I made an exact repeat of a recipe he had just criticized only to hear him say, “This one is soooo much better.” I put the recipe books aside, found what worked for me and kept practicing and adjusting. One day he tasted an apple pie I had made with Black Twig, Bramley Seedling, Baldwin, Cox Orange Pippin and Gravenstein apples and said, “I don’t think this could get any better.” Not quite the words of love I had hoped for but it was the most he could give.

He shared my pies with folks in his food world and one day announced to me that two food writers and a chef were coming to the house to learn to make pie. I had been teaching in the field of music for decades so I thought, how much different could culinary teaching be? Not that much is what I found and after sixteen years, many thousands of students around the globe, the honor of writing three books and receiving a James Beard Nomination, I’m still teaching pie-making. I consider myself a practitioner of a craft and with each pie I create and workshop I teach I learn something new.

Some years back at a multi-day Pie Camp I shared that story of how I wanted to hear those words, “My darling, you make the best pie.” On the last day of camp just before everyone departed I heard them when one pie camper put his arm around me and said them to me. I burst into tears and, when I could catch my breath, asked if he might please say them again so I could record them on my phone to replay whenever I wanted. He was happy to oblige and I’ve even made them the ringtone on my phone. You can hear them below.

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Those years of learning were a very challenging time for me personally but during them I unexpectedly found a calling that I am still passionate about and I’m grateful that Pie seems to have had that same calling in mind for me, too.

Recipe: The Quintessential Apple Pie

Here’s the recipe I created for apple pie. It’s been featured in many books, magazines, newspapers, websites, and you’ll find an entire chapter about apple pie in Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Filings and Life. Enjoy!

What You Will Need

Makes one 9” deep dish pie

8-10 cups apples skin on, quartered and cored (If peels bother you, remove them.)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 gratings nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 tablespoon of an artisan style cider vinegar (Bragg’s is fine.)
1 tablespoon apple liqueur like Calvados or Caramel Apple (optional)
1-2 teaspoons butter chopped into little pieces
1 recipe double crust pie dough

For the Egg Wash

1 egg white plus 1 tablespoon water, fork beaten

How To Make It

Make and chill dough.
Pre-heat oven to 425F.
Slice and chunk apples into pieces you can comfortably get into your mouth. (If you make them too big you may have to cook the filling longer for them to soften.)
In a large mixing bowl put all ingredients except butter and mix lightly until most of the surfaces are covered with what looks like wet Washington sand.
Roll out one disk of dough and place in pie plate.
Fill with apple filling and dot with butter.
Roll out second dough and place on top; crimp edges with a fork.
Cut some vents.
Paint top with egg white wash and sprinkle extra sugar evenly on top.
Bake for 20 minutes in pre-heated oven.
Reduce heat to 375F and bake for 40 minutes longer. If top is getting too dark, protect it with a piece of vented foil.
Pie is done with you hear a sizzle in the crust and a whump from the filling that should be bubbling and sending steam through the vents.
Cool for at least 1 hour before serving.