Stone Fruit and Berry Cobbler at Sometimes

Sometimes, pre-dinner

Last Saturday I went to Sometimes, an alt dinner club/secret cafe put on by friends/friends-of-friends in Baltimore. Guests RSVP in advance and attend the fixed menu dinner, bringing their own alcohol (though some cocktails and other drinks were provided), and a suggested donation. I had been hearing about it for a while now, but wasn't able to make it until this one, which was sadly the last, at least for a while.

Stone fruit and berry cobbler in cast iron skillets

It was approximately a 10 course meal (though some were drinks, and 11-course, if you count the dance party), and each dish was quite impressive. I especially loved the coconut-poached turbot with charred green beans, and naturally, the dessert-- a lambic float with corriander ice cream, and a stone fruit and berry cobbler.

Emmanuel & Justin

The cobblers were cooked in cast-iron skillets, and judging from my piece, contained along with various stone fruits and berries, a bit of rhubarb as well. The cobbler top was the most unique part though--it was just enough sweet and surprisingly (pleasantly) quite spicy, from the addition of red pepper (?).

spicy dessert!

I'm inspired to try adding a lil' spice to a crumble top sometime soon, plus bake in iron skillets more! Thanks to Ben, Heidi, and the rest of the crew for the incredible dinner, and to Anna for inviting me.

On the Cover of Gourmet

A selection of Gourmet magazine (r.i.p.) covers that feature pie. See all of them here.

Peach-Bourbon-Ginger Hand Pies

Peaches in the summertime! I picked up some of summer's favorite stone fruit at the market last week, and got to baking them this past weekend. I found this recipe from the ever-inspiring Smitten Kitchen, and was, well, smitten. Peaches + personal pockets + pies... oh yeah, and bourbon = some of my favorite things.

Peach-Bourbon-Ginger Hand Pies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Makes 14 to 24 (depending on cutter size)

Ingredients

For the crust:
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 c. sour cream
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 c. ice water

For the filling:
2 pounds of peaches (approximately 4)
1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp. bourbon
1 tsp. fresh ginger, zested
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
One egg yolk beaten with 2 tablespoons water (for egg wash)
Turbinado sugar, for dusting

Directions

To make the pastry:

1. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Place the sliced butter in another bowl and put both bowls in the freezer for 1 hour. Remove the bowls from the freezer and make a well in the center of the flour. Add the butter to the well and, using a food processor or pastry cutter, cut it in until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Make another well in the center. In a small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients and add half of this mixture to the well. Stir in the liquid with a wooden spoon until large lumps form. Once dough can be formed, form it into a ball, but do not overwork. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Divide the refrigerated dough in half. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out one half of the dough to 1/8-inch thick. Using a 4 1/2-inch-round biscuit cutter, cut circles out of the rolled dough. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and place in the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes. Repeat with the other half of dough.

To Make the filling: 

1. Peel and dice the peaches into small pieces. Mix them with the flour, sugar, salt, bourbon, vanilla, and ginger.

2. Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator, and let stand at room temperature until just pliable. Spoon about 1-2 Tblsp. filling onto one half of each circle of dough. Brush some cold water around the edges of the dough, and fold it in half so the other side comes down over the filling, creating a crescent moon shape. Seal the hand pie by pressing the edges of the dough together with the back of a fork. Repeat with remaining dough. Place the hand pies back on the parchment-lined baking sheet, and return to the refrigerator for another 30 minutes.

3. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Remove the pies from the refrigerator, cut a small slit in each and lightly brush with egg yolk, sprinkling Turbinado sugar on top. Place pies in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until pies are golden brown. Remove the pies from the oven and let cool. Enjoy!

Overall I was pretty pleased with this recipe, though I found the crust-to-filling ratio a little too high--meaning I need to figure out a way to get more filling in there and still be able to seal it shut. They also get a little soggy fast, so eat them right away! Shouldn't be too hard.

I shared mine with my weekend house guests and co-workers on Monday. Everyone was happy.
p.s. there are not really hands in hand pies.

TEZ/PEZ on Film

I like shooting film (still), but sometimes it means photos are late to the digital party. Here's Ryan in the strawberry-rhubarb and wine-soaked fig rustic tart enjoyment zone (TEZ). Read more about it here.


And here's Artie, Justin, and Jamie in the strawberry-apricot pie enjoyment zone (PEZ). Read more here.

Bruiseberry Pie

The lattice is a little wonky, because I was getting tired and impatient, compromising refrigeration time.

I took a trip to Lewes, Delaware last weekend to meet my dear friends' Mandy and Greg's baby Juniper, and hang out on the beach with the Fischer family. Katy and Lanny picked up some blackberries and blueberries at the farmers' market, and after a full day of SPORTS (kayaking, ocean swimming, bay floating, biking, and tennis), Artie and I made what I call a bruiseberry pie, with black-and-blue- berries (mostly black).

Here's the approximate recipe:

Bruiseberry Pie

Ingredients
Nothing-in-the-house pie crust recipe
5-6 c. fresh blackberries 1 c. (or a handful) fresh blueberries
1/2 c. white sugar  
1/2 c. brown sugar  
2.5 Tblsp. corn starch (or arrowroot)
pinch of salt  
2 tsp. lemon zest
1-2 tsp. ginger zest  
2 tsp. lemon juice  
1 egg (for washing)
Turbinado sugar (for dusting)

Directions
1. Follow instructions for pie crust preparation. Once crust has chilled, preheat oven to 425 F. In a large bowl, mix berries with sugars, corn starch, salt, zests, and lemon juice and set aside.

2. Roll out 1/2 pie crust and place into 10-in greased and floured pie dish. Pour filling into crust. Roll out top crust and cut into lattice strips, using a ruler for uniform width strips (if desired). Weave lattice and flute crust. Brush on an egg wash and dust with Turbinado sugar. 

3. Bake for 10 minutes at 425 F, then reduce heat to 375 F and bake for 35-40 minutes longer or until filling starts to bubble and crust is golden brown.

With this pie, we inducted a new member into the PEZ: plate lickers club, though Lanny said she comes from a long line of plate and bowl lickers.

Lanny carries on the plate licking tradition

Thanks to the Fischers for the lovely weekend!

Dewey's Bakery

In Winston-Salem, NC. Clockwise from top left: mini apple pie, red velvet whoopie pie, chocolate eclaire. Sent in by my friend Lora. Let's go!

Pastry Brushes

This past weekend my friends Mandy and Katy and I were looking at old Childcraft books. The art and design in them is so amazing! We came across this page in a section about "people who use brushes" in the What People Do volume. I'm liking the crust design on those pies...

The Unofficial Roches' Strawberry Apricot Pie

I spent the 4th of July weekend in Maine for some summer days in the ocean air with good pals. Having listened to a lot of my favorite 80s sister trio cheese folk group The Roches before the trip, this song in particular, I had it in my mind to make a strawberry apricot pie. This might sound like a weird desire to have in the land of wild blueberries, but up there, blueberries were still mostly green or purple, but strawberry season was in full force.

I know for a fact, because on our way up to my friend Jamie's cottage, our main haunt for the weekend, we stopped into my friends Nathan & Clara's blueberry farm in Brooklin (the site of Jamie's last plate licking nothing-in-the-house appearance), and there Magpie and I closely inspected the status of the berries. Not ready yet, as much as Magpie wanted them to be.

On our first full day on Mount Desert Island, I walked to the downtown grocer's in the morning to pick up a few items and check out the potential pie fruit. There I found the ripest local Maine strawberries, and some decent fresh apricots (probably not local). Then we went out for an afternoon sail, capped by an evening gin-and-tonics plus nachos happy hour at Dockside.

While the boys foraged for mussels along the causeway and prepared dinner, I set to work on the pie. I initially envisioned making a cold "ice box" variety, but when I asked the dudes whether they preferred warm or cold pie, all three of them gave me a blank look, and were like "WARM, DUHnoquestionHELLO!!"

Using a strawberry-rhubarb pie recipe as a guideline, here's the approximate recipe I improvised:

The Roches' Strawberry Apricot Pie

Ingredients
Nothing in the House pie crust
4 c. (approx.) fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
4 c. (approx.) fresh apricots, thinly sliced
1/4 c. port
1 c. sugar
3 Tblsp. corn starch (can use arrowroot)
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1 egg, beaten
1 Tsp. Turbinado sugar

Directions
1. Prepare dough for crust.

2. Soak apricot slices in port for approx. 1 hr in a medium-sized bowl. Add strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, and lemon zest.

3. Roll out half of crust in a 10-inch greased and floured pie plate. Pour fruit filling into crust and top with crust, fluting edges. Brush on an egg wash and sprinkle with Turbinado sugar.

4. Bake at 425 degrees F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 and bake for 35-40 minutes more. Let cool, but serve while still warm, with vanilla ice cream.

Don't worry Maggie and Suzzy and Terre, I can't vouch for Dublin, but if you're going away to Maine, there's strawberry apricot pie. You might be compelled to lick your plate, but you won't die.

"Speaking Pie To Power"

As a pie blogger and folklorist with personal, professional, and academic interest in food (particularly pie) -as-social-change, I would be remiss to not at least MENTION the pied Rupert Murdoch incident. In referencing the attack, my friend Nathan told me about his friend Audrey Watters, a historian/folklorist who studies the use of pies in political protest (a lady after my own heart!). Read her post/essay "Speaking Pie to Power" here.

Here is a Country Woman Making Rabbit Pies

Please regard this 1934 video from the British Film Institute's "Kitchen-Craft" series. As a vegetarian, I find the full skinned rabbit carcass a bit gross, but this video is full of hilarious one-liners ("Here is a country woman and she is going to show you how to make rabbit and pork into pies," "be generous with your bacon," "no bits, no mess, all in a tidy heap") and some interesting pie-making techniques, like the decorative "beating" of the crust. Enjoy and please let me know if you try out this recipe...

And if you don't know...

...then now you know. Check out Jane Hornby's What To Cook and How To Cook It apple pie recipe, depicted in sequential photographs. Easy as...

Shelf of Pies

By Wayne Thiebaud, c. 1960. Read more about his work on Artsy.

Panama Red's Homemade Pies

From somewhere in Wyoming. Sent in by my dad. See more of his photos here.

A Rustic Cottage and a Rustic Tart (with Wine-Soaked Figs)

Zenobia!

A few weekends ago, I ventured north, up to the Catskills, where I met my friends Diane, Becky, and Ryan in this rustic cottage, aka Zenobia, for an artists' retreat/non-NELP NELP (we have all taught there together, but not this year). The other three were staying for the week, but having just started a new job in D.C., I could only be there for le weekend.

Me, spreading pyllo for spanakopita, Becky at the stove

On Saturday night, Becky and I took on dinner-- a pie night, of sorts-- with spanakopita and roasted asparagus and butternut squash with pecans on the savory side of things, and a rustic tart-- to go with our rustic cabin-- for dessert.

Alice Bradley was the principal of Fannie Farmer's School of Cookery

Initially I just set out to make a strawberry-rhubarb rustic tart, but as Becky and I were chopping vegetables, Ryan read to us from this book-- The Alice Bradley Menu Cookbook, from 1937. Alice organized her cookbook into menus for 3-meals a day for an entire year!

As Ryan read over a menu that included a fig tart, we got to thinking...we had some dried figs in the house, and thought they'd make a nice addition to the strawberry and rhubarb. Since we were in the woods, sans internet, I had to approximate a recipe, but here is basically what I did...

Strawberry-Rhubarb and Wine-Soaked Fig Rustic Tart

Ingredients
Nothing-in-the-House pie crust, halved
2 c. strawberries, hulled and sliced
2 c. rhubarb, chopped
2 c. (or approximately 6-8) dried figs
1/2-1c. red wine
1 c. sugar
3 Tblsp. cornstarch (can use arrowroot)
1 egg, beaten
1-2 Tblsp. Turbinado sugar (for dusting)

Directions
1. Soak figs in 1/2- 1c. red wine for at least one hour. Meanwhile, prepare half of the Nothing-in-the-House pie crust as per the directions. Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. When figs are adequately soaked, chop them, and combine with chopped rhubarb and sliced strawberries in a medium bowl. Stir in 1 c. sugar and 3 Tblsp. cornstarch. 

3. Roll out pie crust into a 10-11-inch circle on a cookie sheet. Scoop filling onto the center of the pie crust. Spread, leaving a 2-in. border. Fold edges of pie crust over filling. Brush and seal with an egg wash. Sprinkle Turbinado sugar over the entire tart. 

4. Place in oven for 10 minutes at 425, then lower heat to 375 and let bake for approximately 30 minutes longer, or until crust is golden brown and filling starts to bubble. Serve with vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream.

Play Bananagrams while you wait for the tart to bake!

The finished tart was incredibly delicious, particularly with the addition of the seeded figs. I'd call it a new favorite. More importantly, it was so nice to be back in the kitchen, reading books, and making jokes again with these three smarty pants.

It's about that time of year...

To go berry picking for your summer pies, tarts, and jams! It's still strawberry season in the North, and on to blueberries in the South. Raspberries, black raspberries, and blackberries will be ready soon.

The pictures above are from the Oregon State University Archives, and feature berry pickers on Oregon "victory farms" in 1946.

*Top: "Kneeling is Stanley Boyer -- one of the best strawberry pickers in the Portland area. His record was 21 crates of strawberries in a 6 hour day."
*Middle: "Joan Renner, 15 years old, from West Linn, is transferring blackcaps from her picking carrier to a crate on the John Phillips farm in the Carus community of Clackamas County."
*Bottom: " Portland Victory Farm Volunteer raspberry picking platoon at lunch at a farm near Troutdale, Oregon."

Happy summer solstice and happy picking!

Strawberry Pie

With the farmer's markets overflowing with fresh, juicy strawberries, I couldn't resist the urge to buy a few pints and make a strawberry pie.

My last attempt at a strawberry pie was last summer. I was making the pie for a party and left it in the refrigerator to chill as guests arrived. When I went to take it out a few hours later, a piece had been cut out (a pie bandit!) and the filling had spilled into the space. Though delicious, the pie had not set very well, but I never knew if the recipe or the pie bandit was to blame.

This year, I used a slightly different recipe and kept friends far from the fridge as the pie chilled. And guess what? It set! And it was bursting with fresh strawberry flavor.

Strawberry Pie

Ingredients:

1 9-inch pie crust, baked

2 pounds fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice, freshly squeezed

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 envelope unflavored powdered gelatin

2 tablespoons cold water

Slice about 3 cups of the strawberries into quarters. Either crush the berries with a fork or process in a food processor until mushy. You should have about 1 1/2 cups crushed berries. Place the crushed berries in a saucepan over medium heat with the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and salt and stir to combine. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally until the mixture begins to thicken slightly, about 5-7 minutes.

While the mixture is cooking, soften the gelatin in the cold water and set aside.

Remove berry mixture from the heat, add the softened gelatin and stir until the gelatin has dissolved. Set aside to cool to almost room temperature.

With the remaining berries, set aside the most attractive ones and slice in half (these will go decoratively on the top of the pie). Cut the rest into quarters and fold them into the cooled mixture. Pour this mixture into the baked pie shell then arrange the halved berries on top. Chill in the refrigerator until set, at least 2 hours or overnight before serving.

Adapted from: Sing For Your Supper

Putting Meringue on Lemon Pies

A 1940 U.S. Forest Service photograph: "CCC enrollee baker Toivo Maki is putting meringue on lemon pies which he baked for the enrollees at the Gegoka CCC camp, Superior National Forest, Minnesota."

Find out more at Oregon State University's digital collections.

Koffee Kup in Hico, TX

Images of Hico, Texas' Koffee Kup and their pecan pie à la mode sent in my Brodie, forever holdin' down the Nothing-In-The-House TX fort. Perhaps all an attempt to get me to come visit?

Pie Takes The Cake Interviews Nothing-In-The-House!

A few months ago I joined the Church of Pie group, a collection of folks dedicated to pie, on Facebook. When I posted our Pi(e) Day video, Gina Hyams, author and owner of the sweet site Pie Takes The Cake contacted me and asked if she could interview me about Nothing-in-the-House. I spoke about the origins of the blog and my love for pie, and sent in a few photographs. It turned out so nice! Check it out here.

Gina also sent me a review copy of her adorable Pie Contest In a Box. I'll be writing about it here as soon as I can round up some contestants, judges, and audience!

English Country Pie

I try not to stray too far into pie-themed tangents here, but Fairport Convention is one of my favorite bands, Dylan ain't too shabby, and y'all know how I feel about pie...