the friday feed: apples

Pie is such a traditional Thanksgiving dessert and I am not a pie baker. My mom loved to bake pies and back in the day I remember her making the dough for her flaky, but not too flaky crusts, using the rolling pin to get it to that perfect thickness. Later on in her life when she did not bake as many pies she discovered the Pillsbury pre-made crusts and she gave them her stamp of approval. "I like these just as much as my own and it's so much easier!"

My people wanted pumpkin, apple, and cherry pies for Thanksgiving. A call to a bakery on the Monday before Thanksgiving got my pumpkin and cherry pies on order (that was a close call) but I still needed apple pies. The bakery's pies were caramel apple, not what the fam wanted. Time for a trip to a farm market in Yellow Springs for apples and then the umpteenth trip to the grocery to buy the Pillsbury pie crusts. 

Apple pie is this non-pie baker's favorite to make. I alway hear my mom's words, "Pile the apples high because they cook down so much. You want to have a fork full of apples when you take a bite of pie." So the day before Thanksgiving, I made the pies, piling the apples into an apple mountain, covering them with the top crust with the "S" cut out, and putting them in the oven to bake. The timer went off and the pies needed a little more time. I turned the oven off, my little grandson asked me to read a book to him. Of course! And one busy things lead to another and then, THE PIES!

The pies weren't burnt but they were a nice dark, shade of gold. My pregnant daughter-in-law loves apple pie and these were just for her. I was crushed. I was tired. I held back some tears. 

Thanksgiving Day my daughter-in-law showed me an app which tracks her baby's growth and gives food examples to provide a point of reference. She showed me that my little granddaughter to-be is now the size of a tarte tatin, "an upside down tart that was invented in the 1880s by a baker who botched an apple pie and had to improvise." The pie agony lifted. Blessings come at the most unexpected times and this timing was perfect. Plus a little homemade whipped cream and/or a scoop of vanilla ice cream did wonders to disguise that crust!