Baking a pie

I baked a pie last night. After working approximately 55-60 hours this week, the fact that I felt like making a pie when I got off work at 9:30 pm last night came as a bit of a surprise. In my family, we all eat lunch together on Sundays. As my siblings and I reached our teen years and family dinners where everyone was present became less frequent due to scheduling conflicts, my mother decided it was time to begin a new tradition. We all eat lunch together on Sundays. Period. You may bring a friend to lunch if you like, but if you aren’t there, you’d better have a doctor’s note. And if you don’t have a doctor’s note, you might as well just leave the country. So now you know the real reason why my brother and I both spent a year in Spain. We missed Sunday lunch and had to flee the country. Anyway, in times past, we have all pitched in with lunch. A couple of us would cook; those who didn’t would set the table, put the food away, wash the dishes, etc. But recently it seems that the oneness has fallen upon my mother and she is doing all the work (unless we’re barbecuing- then my dad cooks). So I’ve decided that I could at least bring dessert. I came to this conclusion several weeks ago, but if I recall correctly, I have only brought dessert once… I’m trying, though.

This is why I baked a pie last night. I’m really glad I did, too. I enjoy cooking. There is something comforting about making a pie. Rolling out the crust, carefully transferring it to the pie tin, mounding up the layers of slivered apples, cinnamon, and sugar, and topping it all with another crust. I have often said that cooking is the only artistic outlet through which I express myself. In fact, cutting a design in the top of the crust in order to allow the pie to vent is essentially the height of my artistic ability… Oh, wait. I take that back. I can draw a pretty cool-looking stick man.

When people ask me how I learned to cook, I usually say that it was a combination of my mother, cookbooks, and a lot of practice. My mom doesn't like to cook, but I always have. So I taught myself a lot. I think that one of the reasons that baking pie is comforting to me is that it is something I remember doing with my mother. I always use her recipe for pie dough (it's the best). Even last night, as I was rolling out the crust, I could remember my mom telling me not to work with the pie dough more than necessary or it would make the crust tough, and showing me how to neatly remove the excess dough from the edges of the crust.