Crust Confessions

My friend was going to a pie party. What a cool idea! Everyone brings a pie. Once I hone my skill more, I may have to try this. Anyhow my friend asked me for my crust recipe. Here it is, it is from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cookbook.

• 1 1/2 c flour
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 stick of butter
• 3-5 T of ice water.

Mix the flour with the salt. Cut in the butter. Gradually add the water. I always need more water, and try to stay to 6 T. But the key is to add just enough water to get it to stay together. And to work it as little as possible. Worse comes to worst, I just pat it in. And if the filling is good, people won't really notice if it isn't perfect, or even bad. But, everyone always notices when it is good.

My mom uses shortening. I generally try to stay away from shortening - trans fats, hydrogenated oils and all that. And, I think butter tastes better. My mom says says shortening makes the crust flakier. Maybe, but I think the butter adds more flavor and seems somehow less greasy.

I tried the Cream Cheese crust for Ginger Pumpkin pie; you can read about it in the Pumpkin Pie Challenge entry; what a disaster.

Many people just use store bought. But as I have discussed with many other people, they are grainy and greasy and just generally blah. And truthfully, it takes maybe 15 minutes more to make the crust.

I had lunch with my pie party friend the other day. We discussed a lot of girly things. As I have hit my thirties, or maybe it is just the era, it is okay - no, even cool to be a girl and do girly things.

Craft fairs are hip. Hipsters knit. Cooking is cool. Of course I told her about my new obsession with pies.

She told me about a recent show on NPR about a new book called Humble Pie. I thought maybe I would find a kindred pie spirit. But the Author, Anne Dimock was more from my mom's generation and had all this fake feminism mumbo jumbo to say. The author discussed how she could tell about a man by the way he ate a pie. And that pie means family, etc.

To me, it is something I can do late at night, that I can finish. It is something everybody loves and it is something unique that shows that I care. It is way that I can be creative in a hands on fashion. I do agree though with Ms. Dimock and the All Things interviewer, that pie is becoming a lost art.