High Time for Pies

July marks the beginning of pie season for me. For as long as I can remember this is the season when berries and cherries have to be picked and processed for baking. Certainly pies can be made anytime, since ready made crusts and canned pie fillings are always available in the grocery stores, but in my opinion for a truly fresh, once-a-year, mouth-watering, dessert experience, berry pies should be made, just shortly after berry picking.

This tradition began for me when I was a little girl. Each summer – in late June or early July, my brothers and I were invited to spend a week with my grandmother and grandfather Johnson at their little bungalow on Wildwood Drive in Ottumwa, Iowa. While the house was small, the yard was huge and I always marveled at how my grandparents gardened what seemed like an acre behind their home. Spring and summer time for them was dedicated to planting, growing, and putting away food for the year. An old habit, perhaps from their own childhoods. They retained a depression-era perspective on storing up for hard times, to the point that their basement contained a special room featuring floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with home-canned fruits, vegetables, sauces, jellies, relishes and God knows what else. So dedicated were they to this practice and a belief that they would perish without this food that they were able to calculate precisely how many plants were needed to produce enough for their family to enjoy all year. Grandma could tell you exactly how many green bean seeds to plant in order to have enough green beans canned for family meals through one year! And quite honestly there was nothing quite as wonderful as eating all that homegrown food at one of their Thanksgiving dinners. There was a pride and satisfaction in that food ,from having grown it all themselves, that made each dish taste all the better.

There was a division of labor in all of this effort. Grandma planned and helped plant and weed and cooked and canned. Grandpa did all the digging and planting, the majority of weeding and harvesting. I can still see my "Papa" as we called him, wearing his striped overalls (shirtless), a straw hat and hoeing the garden with sweat dripping off the end of his nose. And there was grandma in her little floral cotton dress and apron... white cotton anklets, tightly curled hair, running back and forth between kitchen and garden at a speed Superman would admire.
My brothers and I were each assigned a tree to pick. I still remember, as though it were yesterday, climbing into "my" cherry tree and being surrounded by the million bright red balls that I plucked as fast as I could. Sometimes I tried to count how many I’d pick and my brothers and I would try to see who could pick the fastest. In the end it was silly for we were all three expected to pick our trees clean. Whether we did it slowly or fast mattered not, the work had to be done.

Once the trees were picked we helped Grandma wash and pit the cherries. This task went surprisingly fast since she had an antique cherry pitting tool. We poured cherries into the spout of this gizmo as she cranked a handle and miraculously each cherry was split and pitted. Following this we were encouraged to go play as she made fresh pies for dinner. I wish now that I’d lingered in her kitchen, to learn how she baked those wonderful pies. She really had a talent for making show-quality pies, beautifully glazed and artfully decorated.

Years later when I moved to my own country home, I was thrilled to discover cherry and apple trees on the property. My grandparents had all passed on and I found myself longing to do my own gardening and pie-making. All those childhood experiences came back to me and it was as if my grandparents were at my side guiding me through the process. I was good at cherry picking, but the pie-baking skills I was lacking in. I decided the best way to learn that was to practice. I announced to my work colleagues that if anyone was interested in being my guinea pig, to bring me an empty pie plate and I would return it to them with a pie in it. I figured after making 3 or 4 pies I would have crust-making nailed. I also didn’t expect there to be wide spread interest in my invitation. To my surprise, every day for the next couple of weeks, I would come to work and find empty pie plates, with names taped on the bottom of the pans, sitting in front of my office door. Funnier still was the fact that work mates didn’t bring just one pie plate. Some brought 2 and 3! And some of the gentlemen asked if they could keep bringing me pie plates after their pie was gone. I had created monsters! Over the course of 2 weeks I think I made about 2 dozen pies and had tried several different pie crust recipes. In that short but harried time I gained a confidence in pie-making and speed in whipping them together. Mission accomplished.

So here it is again, July...pie time. My week has been spent picking and pitting cherries. On July 4th my husband and I enjoyed the first pie of the season. We sat in silence as we ate it, savoring it’s magic. "Just once a year?"... my husband said. "Yup" I replied. That’s what makes it all so special.

Recipe for My Mom’s Pie Dough:
2 cups + 4 table spoons of all purpose flour
2/3 cup of vegetable oil
4 tablespoons of cold water
1 teaspoon of salt.
Form dough into a round patty and roll out between sheets of waxed paper.

Pass It On

When my daughter was a mere three years old she enjoyed watching cooking shows on television and often wanted to participate in making supper with me. One time she had stayed overnight at her grandma and grandpa’s house and when I called to check on her I asked her what she was doing. She told me she learned how to make "bird’s nest soup" and Dad explained they’d been watching Julia Child and an Asian chef make the recipe. "I’m gowan to makit for you Mommy", she promised.

Yet another time, when she was quite small – perhaps five or six years old, it was mother’s day and I was awakened at 6:30 a.m. by her little voice saying "Surprise". As I opened my eyes, and my blurred vision slowly came into focus, there my little angel was standing holding a tray with scrambled eggs and toast and coffee! Then I realized her father was still asleep beside me and that this little genius had figured out how to do it all by herself. I thought about her height and how she must have labored to get up on the counter and into the cupboards to get the supplies she needed to make my breakfast. I thought of how she was barely tall enough to see into the frying pan, unless she’d been standing on something. I thought about how difficult it must have been for her to carry the tray of food and a hot drink, no less all the way upstairs to my bedroom. All the potential accidents she avoided and what kind of mess might be awaiting me in the kitchen.

I cried of course and put the tray on my lap and grabbed her and held on tight. She crawled in bed with me and helped me eat my breakfast, telling me everything she’d done to make it happen. The idea came to her from a television commercial. I loved her so much for doing this and at the same time wondered if she’d be trying to drive the car next.
Katie was always fun to cook with. Over the years as she grew up she helped me decorate holiday cookies, learned how to help grill meat on the barbecue, learned to make all of the family’s favorite dishes, and one Thanksgiving even got up at 5:00 o’clock with me to help make the Thanksgiving meal. She got a workout helping make the stuffing, preparing the turkey, and various dishes. When our company arrived she announced she’d made the entire meal. She’d had some help of course, but I was pleased to let her take the credit. I knew few of her peers shared such an interest and she was growing through all of this. Preparing herself for one day feeding others.

Another favorite memory of Katie cooking was when she decided to make our family recipe for Baklava and enter it in a cooking contest at our community’s annual homecoming festival. She won 1st place.

I don’t know how exactly this love of cooking was fostered in her, but it pleases me immensely to know that my girl can do more than boil water and eat instant or fast foods. More than this, she seems to really appreciate fine cooking. I think really it began by just including her in everything, having tea parties together and making a game out of making a meal. While I was absorbing myself in her world it appears she was being the wonderful little sponge that children can be and soaking up all she could to develop her own skills.

Recently she and Tom and I traveled to St. Louis for the weekend and while there ate at a wonderful Indian restaurant named Rasoi. Katie was excited about trying all the new foods and made a point of writing down some of the names of the dishes. A week passed, and I was missing her again, feeling as I always do that our time together had been much to short. I wondered if our weekend trip had been as meaningful for her as it had me. I opened up my e-mail and thrilled at finding a note from her and a picture. She had been experimenting. She had found recipes on the internet for two of the Indian dishes she’d enjoyed at Rasoi and so she made them for herself. She photographed them for me to see. I was so very proud for all her effort and inquisitiveness.

I think I must have done something right as a mother... at least I’d like to believe this. To me it’s a wonderful thing if a child can grow up being confident and capable in the kitchen; desires to try new things; and hungers to know and experience what life has to offer. One need not travel the other end of the earth (although that’s good too) to know something of the world. I hope that I’ve taught my daughter that food and cooking experiences can teach you about other worlds and even open doors. At least it has for me.