The Evolution of Pie Crust (and My Own)

At the tender age of nineteen, I treated my fiance to a rare spectacle. As he watched with patience and curiosity, I pressed a ball of dough together as it fell apart at exactly the same rate. I added water. It stuck like glue. Then flour. It hardened. I tried to roll it out. The blasted thing crumbled.

I stomped up and down. I growled and shrieked. I pounded the dough and the table with my fists. Then, to my future husband's wide-eyed amazement, I shot-putted our purported future pumpkin pie crust across the room.

I don't throw tantrums often, and that one made family history.

Since then, he (and all other dear friends and family) granted me a wide berth the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have tried many recipes -- those with butter (too hard), palm oil (eeuuww), coconut oil (hmm.), vegetable oil (cardboard), and Crisco (God, don't tell, but it tasted good....). I have tweaked recipes and followed them, refrigerating, freezing, pre-baking, and resting doughs. I have eaten them all, even raw, as a penance.

But this Thanksgiving was, indeed, a first. Seda (who once was my husband and now sports the apron and heels of Ms. Cleaver) volunteered to cook Thanksgiving dinner. And perhaps since I socialized her harshly around pie-making, or maybe because she regards with due respect my personal pilgrimage to enlightenment through oil saturated dough, she said: "But you will make the pies?"

And I agreed.

I got on the phone with a dear friend (Thanksgiving itself), and we chatted about everything from the earth-shattering to the spoon clattering that night. It's all the same, all one, we laughed. I threw away the measuring cups after I lost count of the flour. I put in just enough butter to feel kind of right. (What had I to compare it to?) And then I put in water until it all came together.

Sam said, "Look! It's stretchy!" Well, for those of you familiar with pie dough, you will know that is not a good sign. I smiled.

"Yes, I said, and it will probably bake up hard as a rock, but I will chew and chew and think on how grateful I am to have such a good friend to talk with while making pie crust.

Guess what? It's hard, alright. It doesn't taste half-bad, but cutting a piece would be named an Olympic event if the pie only lasted long enough. And every bite I chew with gratitude for the joyful chat that was mine.

"It's a Concrete Crust!" beamed Trinidad. "Really hard to live with. Get the joke, Mom? Hard?

I'm still laughing.

P.S.
Seda posted recent pics of the family on her lovely Thanksgiving blog post.