Just Another Cottage in Blogville

My fingers smell like orange and lemon zest...

Again, in the mood for buzzing creatively through my kitchen. I slept about an hour over my alarm clock, got up, showered, and began my day by dressing for the grocery store. Yesterday I tricked my mother into purchasing the Granny Smith apples and oranges I would need for yet another recipe out of my "Eating Royally" book. (Looove it!) My dad knew I was planning to bake my mother a surprise -- Old English Apple Pie -- and loaned me his member card for the grocery store so we get points for lower gas prices.

Everything I needed was in the kitchen, minus vanilla paste, a lemon, and a cup of sugar. (I'd used up the sugar on the iced coffee yesterday.) Instead of investing in vanilla paste that really doesn't have much use in our house, I skipped it and purchased a $.67 lemon (which wound up being more pith than lemon) and stopped by my grandma's house for a cup of sugar. She was tickled pink, to use a cliché, and congratulated me on my attempt at making a homemade pie, crust and all, for my mother.

Both of my grandmothers are experts at homemade pastry-making, an area of baking in which my mother fails. Normally she is great at bakery, but from a very young age I was told that I had to learn how to make pie crust from my grandmothers to carry on the family technique. My mother uses the frozen pie crusts, which my granny has resorted to in recent years, and my father instructed me to use the crusts we have stored in the freezer. Of course, I neither planned to use said crusts, nor did use them. Ah, Almost-Eighteen Syndrome.

All of the filling ingredients were laid out -- four Granny Smith apples, orange zest and juice, lemon zest and juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and butter -- along with the pastry ingredients. Both the pastry and filling required butter with two significantly different amounts. I began mixing the butter and sugar together for the pastry, then mixed it with the flour and egg. A few summers ago I took culinary lessons, and pie crust was one of the things we made. I remembered a few things clearly about pastry-making, and the rest are vague details. I did remember not to overwork the dough, but found that the mix of butter and sugar turned into a sweet crumbly mess with all of the flour. Nothing I did made it stick together, and it certainly didn't look anything like any pie crust I'd ever seen in the process of making.

Surprise, surprise: I wasn't paying attention (what else is new?) and mixed up the amounts of butter while preparing the pastry. There went the rest of the sugar in the house, along with a massive amount of flour among other ingredients. So, I started from square one, and found the batter too sticky, but simply continued adding flour as I folded the dough little by little. It was still sticky, but in much better shape, and still needed refrigerated for "at least an hour" according to the book. I covered it and went to my room to dust and vacuum, filling up time.

At last close to an hour passed and I returned to the kitchen to peel, core, and slice the apples while mixing together the rest of the ingredients for the filling. I removed the dough from the fridge, sectioned it in half, and worked the dough gently, adding flour, flour and more flour. Still it fell apart but, semi-workable, I tossed it into the pie dish and worked it from there. After pouring in the filling -- which smelled delicious -- I worked the rest of the dough with slightly better results and placed it on top. There were lots of tears in the crust, so I picked off the excess from different sides and tried to patch it up. With a knife I made a few slits in a circle, painted on a bit of beaten egg, and prayed for the best, putting it into the oven with five minutes under the time instructed -- better than having it burn.

All day I'd been calling my dad for help. He is the main chef in the family with a great sense of food, both from growing up with two top-notch cooking grandmothers -- one whose alma mater was a European finishing school -- and traveling to nearly every continent, eating his way through dozens of countries. Upset about my crust, I told him, "Dad, I think I ruined the pie crust. It looks like it's going to be a disaster."

"Did you use the pie crusts in the freezer like I told you to?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Rather sheepishly I answered, "I wanted to try making pie crust on my own."

Sounding less-than-thrilled, he said, "Well God bless your heart for wanting to try to make pie crust on your own."

Because of the delay with the pastry, my mother arrived home mid-bake. She was still surprised and excited to try it after dinner.

Finally the timer went off, and it appeared "golden brown" to me. The crust didn't look bad; it looked edible, but I imagined the filling was runny with all the orange and lemon juice. My mother said it would still taste fine. My father's comment: "It looks pale."

Although I am a small, feminine version of my dad, and a total daddy's girl, my father is the one person in this world whom I've always been afraid of. I value his opinion and won't marry a guy that doesn't get along well with my dad. In other words, his thoughts mean the world to me. His taste test -- he is the traditional, Fiddler on the Roof papa -- was first. I scooped the pie onto a dish and poured on the juices. He sat down and took his first bite as I scooped my mother's piece and then mine.

After a moment of silence, I asked meekly, "What do you think, Dad?"

"It's runny," he said. I finished scooping my own piece and looked over. Dad is known for his fast-paced eating, acquired at a young age from eating with a large family with only so much food on the table; who finished first got more second helpings. I was unsurprised to see his piece was gone, but impressed that hardly a speck remained. "That was, hands down, the best-tasting pie crust I have ever had."

I refuse to cry in front of my parents, and held it back. Naturally he had some constructive criticism: "Make sure you preheat till the light goes out." - "Leave it in the final five minutes." - "Try it with a cobbler crust that my mother can give you. It would be great with this."

The apple pie had a great flavor. It burst with citrus from the orange and lemon juices and zests, and the Granny Smith apples were tart with the right balance of softness and crispness. The crust was flaky, and I was pleased. However, it was runny, and the crust did need a little more time in the oven. That I'll admit.

Once more, this book is filled with recipes fit for a king.

Phew! A long day of slaving in the kitchen turned out to be rewarding. Honestly, I admire women who are homemakers. Today people have this notion that it's backwards to stay at home and care for a family, but I am no feminist when it comes to that. It makes sense that someone had to stay home and do all the cooking, cleaning, etc., because there was no way a woman could work and do all three meals, etc., unless she went without sleep. No wonder prairie fathers advertised for wives in newspapers.