Weve lived here a good long minute, aka 10 months. And we, the "we" being one Miss Celia, one Miss Melanie, and one Miss Rebecca have had the intention from day one to document the lovely, inventive, clever, and delicious ideas that have come out of our heads and into this home in the form of decadent food and creative home renovation through a blog just like this one. However, we experienced some ruts along the way. Winter was most definitely as much of a metaphorical experience for us as it was a literal. But here we are, and it's spring, and all of the ideas and dreams that have been percolating in our heads are getting ready to greet this temperate season like an explosion of wildflowers.
My family has a gift. The gift of making perfect pies. And a perfect pie, as we all know, starts with perfect crust. Flaky, tender, salty; its a delicate balance of texture. One that holds your pie together like a firm embrace and effortlessly breaks apart in your mouth like a cloud. My mother has been baking pies since before I was born, which was 27 years ago. She's so competent at her craft she might as well just wave her hand and a pie would appear; it's that effortless for her.
I've attempted multiple times to summon the pie crust magic running in my mother's veins and every time I've come away defeated. Instead of having the ingredients come together easily, I would end up with a sticky mess that would refuse to become a ball of dough. I would coax it with extra sprinkles of flour, pleading with it to cooperate like a desperate young mother in over her head with a disgruntled child. It would always be to no avail. I resigned myself to being the member of the family who didnt inherit the magical gift and did my best to move on with my life.
Well, recently, I decided to try again. Celia has an internship at Chez Pannise and has been cooking up a flurry of tasty little treats and with all the vigorous flour slinging and sugar scooping, I felt inspired to make something delicious contained within a pie crust. Then my mother brought by some gorgeous organic strawberries and in the same afternoon I happened across some fresh rhubarb at the grocery store, so it was a done deal that I was going to take on Strawberry Rhubarb Pie despite my reservations. I began to assemble the ingredients for the pie crust. This pie crust recipe has been in my family for a spell and many women in my family have won blue ribbons for having used this recipe. It starts simply enough, 2 cups flour, 1 cup shortening. In my idealism, I've attempted in the past to use organic, non-hydrogenated super special fancy shortening. Therein lied my mistake of the past. The secret is Crysco. It is the ONLY way the magic will work. So, lacking a pastry cutter, I chopped the Crysco into the flour using two knives and eventually used a fork until it was all integrated into crumbly bits. In a separate bowl I whisked a egg with a tablespoon of ACV (apple cider vinegar) and a tablespoon of water. This here, is the moment of reckoning. This is moment where the magic either happens or it doesn't and you are left with a sticky mess on your hands wondering where in this relatively simple process you went wrong. I took a deep breath and poured my liquid into the flour mixture and lightly stirred the two together with my fork. And wouldnt you know, before my very eyes, like pie crust magic, it effortlessly formed into a beautiful ball of dough that rolled out like a dream! I yelled at the top of my lungs " I'VE GOT THE GIFT!!!" I hastily assembled my fruit mixture ( 2.5 cups of sliced strawberries, 2.5 cups of rhubarb, 1.5 cups of sugar and a third cup of flour), dumped it into the crust and popped it all in the oven. By the time it came out it was late at night, so I got to wake up and have this as my breakfast. Needless to say, I am extremely and magically pleased.
