Pie Interlude

We interrupt this search for enlightenment with a brief discussion of pie and pie crust. I feel very strongly, I should note, that the search for enlightenment and the search for really good pie are very similar:

Search for Spiritual Enlightenment:
Feeling vaguely dissatisfied with life
Searching for deeper meaning
Feeling that there must be something you can do to elevate your spirit
A general mistrust of the stereotypical “church” or organized religion as it is portrayed in the media
Experiencing moments of bliss while meditating, chanting, singing
Feeling connected through spiritual community

Search for Pie Nirvana:
Feeling vaguely dissatisfied with current pie selections
Searching for really good pie that tastes like the ones your Grandma used to make
Feeling that there must be some pie out there that could elevate one’s taste buds
A general mistrust of common, chain-store bakery pie made without love by sad-faced, overworked and underpaid people
Experiencing moments of bliss while rolling out the crust and flipped it without a tear into the pie plate
Feeling connected through pie appreciation


Feel free to skip this section if you are not pie-inclined (you know who you are… Bunny!).

I made a lovely apple strawberry pie a few days ago and thought I’d share my recipe. But first, a word or a thousand about pie crust. Where do you stand on pie crust? Thick? Thin? Crispy? Soft? Pre-baked so the bottom isn’t all pasty-beige and raw? Special ingredients so that the crust has a personality all its own? Mix the dough by hand? Food processor? Mixer? Lay it on me, I really want to know. Please take my pie and pie crust survey. It's short and sweet, I promise.

Googled apple strawberry recipes- sad selection, pre-made crust?!! WTF? I know some of you may think you can’t make a pie crust or you don’t have time. Call me. I will walk you through the process. Or we’ll make a pie together. Bring it on.

I have to tell you- I am kind of low tech when it comes to cooking. This means that things take me a bit longer than they might if I had all the newfangled tools, like a microwave or a big Cuisinart. I suppose it’s stupid of me not to invest in some of these things, as one thing I’m always bemoaning is my lack of time to cook and bake. But part of the whole reason for baking is taking the time to do it and make something to feed yourself and others. I like to infuse my baked goods with positive juju too. Next time you make something, send it your love and see what happens.

But I digress, as usual. What I’m trying to say is that I do most things by hand. Like mixing pie crust. Or whipping cream, but I whip cream by hand because I’m a bit of a show-off, not because I don’t have a pink KitchenAid mixer sitting on my counter. But also, I get confused easily, and if it’s just my hands and nothing to wrangle but the dough, I’m good to go. Plus, I hate cleaning those dang blades.

This recipe is adapted from the wonderful and fun James McNair and his Pie Book. I like his version of pie crust:

3 cups flour (I usually just use unbleached, all-purpose flour)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1 cup unsalted butter right out of the fridge (don’t let it sit out and reach room temp- you want it chilly! And I know a lot of people like to use shortening or other ingreds in their crust, but I like the butter way. I am going to experiment with some other fats… more on that later.)
½ cup or more of ice water (I usually measure out a ½ cup of water in a measuring cup and then drop an ice cube in)

This is enough dough to make a double crust pie or two single crust pies.

Mix the flour, salt and sugar. If you’re feeling wild and flirty, try sprinkling a little sumpin’ sumpin’ into the flour mixture. Like some cocoa powder or cardamom or cayenne. Cut the butter into little chunks (about the size of square grapes, if that helps) and drop into the flour mixture. Work the butter chunks into the flour as quickly as possible- the key is not to over mix, kind of like with pancakes. I find that I use a twisting motion with one or both hands as I break up the butter- kind of like a washing machine rotor. Sprinkle the flour with the ice water (just don’t let the ice cube fall in) and combine again until the dough starts to hold together. If it’s still really crumbly, add more water. I usually wind up using another few tablespoons of ice water.

Divide the dough in half and place each half on a sheet of wax paper. Gather into a ball and press flat. Wrap the paper around the crust and place in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Now for the rolling out of the pie dough. If you’ve got a marble pastry board, you are golden, but a kitchen counter will do. Sprinkle some flour around your work surface and break out your rolling pin. (Again, I heart marble for this job, but my mom has this really gorgeous mahogany or some such dark wood rolling pin that is completely smooth and just tapers at the edges so you don’t get any lines from the sides of your rolling pin.)

Roll the dough out from the center toward the edges so you get a uniform circle that’s around 1/8 of an inch thick. Eyeball your pie pan to make sure the dough circle will be big enough and overlap the sides so you can have fun with fluting the edges.

If your dough breaks at any point, just brush the broken edges with a tiny bit of cold water and press them gently together.

I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to get your pie dough from the counter to your pie pan. I never know how I’ll wind up transferring it. Sometimes it sticks a bit and a spatula is needed to gently loosen the bottom, before folding it in half and lifting it into the pan.

I used to ignore this next step, but then I read in Baking with Julia about how the gluten relaxes if you chill the dough for another 30 minutes or so. Why, you ask, do I need to worry about the gluten’s state of relaxation? Well, apparently gluten, when not relaxed, will kind of bunch up, like you do around the shoulders after a particularly stressful day at work or when your child decides to reach into their diaper and create poo paintings on their bedroom walls. Your dough will start to contract and that lovely edge you’ve created will sink down into the side of the pan. So let that gluten relax, I say. And take that 30 minutes to pour yourself a glass of wine and kick your feet up or listen to Chamma Chamma at high volume while shaking your bahootie. Or better yet, watch it!

Now it’s time to pre-bake that suckah! (Or bake it all the way if you’re going to make a pie whose filling doesn’t need to be baked.)

Preheat your oven to 400° F.

Place some foil over the unbaked pie crust and gently press it down. Make sure your foil is bigger than the pie so the foil just covers the edges. Fill the shell with pie weights (ceramic balls about the size of a large pea- you can get them at most cookware stores), dried beans, or rice. I have pie weights, but I’ve also found dried kidney beans to be very effective. Bake just until the crust feels slightly set, roughly 7 to 10 minutes. Set a timer so you don’t burn your crust!

Remove the pie crust from the oven, take the pie weights and foil off, and prick the sides and bottom of the crust with a fork so it won’t puff up like mine did the first time. Stick that pie crust back into the oven for another 5 minutes or so. Voila! Pre-baked pie crust.

Here’s my recipe for Apple-Starberry Pie. I call it that because I was making a pie for a picture for a party invite and it needed a star on the crust. If you cut out a star in the top crust, it looks lovely – you can see the gorgeous fusion of apple strawberry white and red mixing and mingling into a mélange of yum. It’s also apple strawberry because that’s what I had on hand. But it worked out so well, I thought I’d share it. Pretty simple combo.

Apple Starberry Pie

Preheat your oven to 425° F.

In a large bowl, combine:

¾ cup sugar – use brown sugar for a richer flavor (I sometimes use a bit less as I don’t like a super-sweet pie)
¼ tsp salt
¾ tsp cinnamon
a generous pinch of cloves
a generous pinch of allspice

Mix well. Add 8 cups of peeled, cored, and thinly sliced apples (I like Granny Smith or Pinata) and 1 cup of sliced strawberries. Mix well to make sure the fruit is nicely coated with the sugar mixture. Add 1 TBS lemon juice and 1 tsp lemon zest and toss like a salad so everything’s incorporated. Put the fruit into the cooled pie shell and if you’re feeling decadent, dot with a few tablespoons of butter.

Roll out the rest of the pie dough for the top crust, making a slightly larger circle than the pie. Place the top crust over the rest of the pie and moisten the edges with beaten egg white to paste the two crust edges together. Pinch off excess dough and cut some air vents or decorative shapes. (Or the initials of the person you’re making the pie for, if it’s a gift.) You can brush the top crust with a mixture of an egg yolk and 2 TBS whipping cream for a shinier glaze. I don’t always do this because I find that it sometimes makes the top brown quicker. I do like to sprinkle the top with a cinnamon sugar mixture, for added sweetness.

Before I put the pie in the oven, I usually cover the edges of the crust with those handy metal pie shields. You can get them at most cookware stores or fashion your own out of heavy duty aluminum foil. That way, your crust edges don’t get too burnt before the rest of the pie’s done.

Bake for 10 minutes. Then turn down the temp to 350° and bake for around 40 minutes more, until crust is golden brown and the fruit is nice and squishy.

Let cool for a few minutes and serve with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid

Warning! My writing is much like my meditation- a basket full of puppies who can't stay in the same place and run yipping and slipping to all corners of the room to chew on things and sniff around for thrills and spills. SO if you find you just can't stay with me, my apologies and by all means, please go read something more rewarding, like Pride and Prejudice or the Sexual Politics of Meat.

So there I was, sitting in front of an empty bookcase in a Zen center. I am in pretty desperate need of spiritual connection or something of the sort. I just know that what I got now ain’t working and it’s time to shake things up a bit. Fear and anxiety have become too familiar and now always know where to find me. I want to feel some sort of connection to spirit again.

I found this Zen center online and their web site says you can just show up, so that’s what I did. When I arrived a greeter guy took my backpack and showed me where to stash my stuff. As he reached for my water bottle, I had a sudden urge to clutch it to my chest. My purple Sigg water bottle, it turns out, is something of a security blanket (or “blanklet,” as my daughter would say). But I resisted my urge and let him stow my trappings of yuppiedom away, safely out of sight.

Back to the empty bookcase. So greeter guy takes me to the prop area so I can choose what I want to sit on during meditation. Being the competitive person I am, (I get it from my dad, who gets it from his mom- oh just accept it, it’s not an insult) I immediately offered to simply sit on the floor. Out of the kindness of his heart, greeter guy saw through this tactic and suggested I use a pillow and a blanket. He also hands me an index card with about five lines of text on it and tells me that they will be chanting this at the end. I glance at the words and try not to feel disappointed in the form and word choice. Man, am I judgmental or what? I place the card at the foot of my cushion, so I can read it when we chant.

OK, now back to the empty bookcase. So he leads me into the meditation room, points me to a place in the corner, and explains that we’ll be facing different directions at different times. So I sit down with my face no more than 10 inches from this big, built-in, mahogany bookcase, which is empty.

I was trying to be all Zen and not look for reason or meaning in everything, you know, just quiet the mind, but when faced with a blank bookcase and 10 minutes before the meditation practice is set to start, what would you do?

A blank bookcase. At first I thought maybe it was saying to me, “Look at all the books you’ve written. NOT!” or maybe, “Here lies the sum of your accomplishments.” Ouch. But against my more cynical self (who really doesn’t get much of a chance around here), I went with, “This is for you to fill with your experience as you embark on this spiritual journey. You have only just begun and you have so many stories to write. And they will all be true.” Of course, it also occurred to me that the bookcase was empty because, if it had been full, I would have been distracted by thoughts along the lines of, “Who’s still reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Haven’t we moved on to I Am That?”

A bell started ringing and a gong, or maybe it was a gong and then a bell. Then silence, at least inside the room. Outside, it’s still over 80 degrees at 7:15 p.m. and everyone and their dog is outside hootin’ and hollerin’ and the gang bangers are driving by with their blasters thumping out Kanye West talking about how when she leaves your ass, she’s gonna leave with half. And little girls are running up and down the street, their sandals clacking loudly on the sidewalk, like Buddhist monks hitting those clappers to begin a new chant.

And for some odd reason, I feel bliss. I don’t mind the noise, in fact, it’s fine. It works. I have been feeling so burnt out by the city, by congestion and smog and noise and mean drivers (myself sometimes included) and lines and concrete but in that moment, I am down with it. It’s just life.

I sit, facing the empty bookcase, not knowing if my eyes are supposed to be opened or closed. I choose closed, but sometimes, when I do get swept up in the vortex of energy swirling around inside, I open them to see the comforting dark brown emptiness of those smooth, entirely dust-free shelves.

I try to quiet my mind and focus on my breath and feel how tight my stomach is. I like to keep my insides tucked up under my rib cage when I’m anxious or stressed. And there they stay for quite a while, even after the main reason for stress should be gone. There’s a weight on my chest as I try to breathe smoothly and easily. Normally, I’m pretty hard on myself when I’m not able to do something perfectly, but this time I just keep reminding myself that this is the first time I’ve meditated in a very long time. I feel like being kind to myself and that kindness seems to radiate outward as I sit in stillness.

A bell rings and everyone gets up to do the walking meditation. Again, I have no idea what I’m really supposed to be doing, so I just follow the woman in front of me until I realize she’s heading to the bathroom and then I veer off back into the main room. We are walking very slowly and I can’t tell if people have their eyes open or are doing some blind king fu magic with their third eye. Another bell and we’re suddenly moving faster around the room and out and back in. I follow greeter guy, who’s weaving a path between the cushions on the floor, which very much reminds me of walking the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral with my mother-in-law. In the moment, I think of her and feel gratitude for having known her (she died on December 24, 2004) and joy in her presence, but now, as I write, I feel the loss and my insides wander back up inside my ribs.

Which leads me to share what I’m searching for. Meaning. I need to believe that there’s some reason we’re all here and that the loss of loved ones that seems to extinguish all the light is not just plain old loss and the way things have to be. I can’t stand the idea that I’ll just slowly lose everyone who matters to me. That I might even lose some of those who are younger than me. Like my daughter. Or my husband.

SO I need to believe in something that ties it all together and makes it mean something. Kind of like Lebowski’s rug. It really tied the room together.

And if you know anything about Buddhism, you’re probably thinking, “She’s barking up the wrong tree if she wants to find meaning in death. The whole point is that there is no meaning. You just have to let go of your expectations and desires. Therein lies the suffering.”

Back at the Zen center, when the walking part is over, we all go back our places, bow a few times, and sit down facing into the center of the room. And the whole thing begins again. I sit quietly and breathe, but unlike the first zazen, now I am wriggly and can’t get comfortable. My right leg starts to burn, right along my knee and down the side of my calf and I can’t seem to find a position that feels good. The air is cooling down and my thoughts are quieting and the truth is, I still do feel good. Happy and relatively peaceful. Excited about embarking on this adventure.

A bell chimes and everyone bows and begins chanting. I realize that my index card is gone. It is nowhere to be found and so I simply sit in silence as everyone chants. The words are meaningful in and of themselves but just don’t, dare I say it, resonate with me. For me, chants require rhythm and flow. I want to be able to relish the sounds of the words and the shapes my mouth makes as it forms the words. I do so find pleasure in forming words.

After the chant, we all get up and bow and then prostrate ourselves in front of the altar and then get up and then get back down several times.

Then it’s time for tea and cookies. “That’s what I’m talking about!” I think, as we repair to the kitchen. I decide to use the bathroom first, not so much because I have to go, but because I feel like I need a moment of reflection before speaking and interacting.

I enter the kitchen and introduce myself to the six or so people there. A woman holding a pitcher smiles and says, “Would you like some herbal tea punch? It’s… minty.” As she pours it for me, she adds, “It’s an experiment.”

Why in heaven’s name would I drink something that has just been referred to as an experiment, from someone I don’t know, in a house I’ve never been to before? Because I’m a nice person and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and she looks like a very nice lady, around my mom’s age and well, it’s frickin’ hot and I’m thirsty.

So I drank the kool-aid, so to speak. I had several sips. And she was right, it was… minty. It was so minty, it tasted like she’d dumped half a bottle of peppermint extract into the pitcher. At first, it just tasted refreshing, but then my throat began to tingle, the way mucous membranes and sensitive areas tingle when you get a little crazy and splash cologne in places it doesn’t belong.

I politely said good night and drank the entire contents of my water bottle as soon as I got to my car. When I got home, my husband asked how it went and I said, “Hold on, I have to eat some yogurt to coat my throat.” One large bowl of Greek yogurt and two pieces of heavily buttered toast later, I was able to share what I learned.

I know it sounds corny, but I learned that happiness really is inside me if I just shut my mouth and sit still for a moment and listen. But also-

Kindness need not extend to consumption of toxic herbal tea.

and

Bliss does not preclude stupidity. (And I refer here to my own bliss and stupidity and nobody else’s.)