“It’s Like Warm Apple Pie”

Time for some Daily Blog

This is right in time for a lot of people’s favorite holiday, the one where we stuff our faces to the maximum, remember to be thankful of our lives, and sit around to watch parades or football games. Something that causes me to salivate and reminisce of years past is pie. Apple pie, pumpkin, and pecan come to mind when I think of Thanksgiving. Most other pies are reserved for the spring or summer, but both retrieve memories of my stepmom. She taught me everything I know in the way of baking. Everything from the way the homemade crust browns best if you sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top and line the edges with tin foil, to learning how to be able to gage the remainder of the cooking time by color and firmness; all of this was originally her knowledge. Okay maybe I get a little emotional about my food, but it’s not always bad.
We would always make extra so that there would be leftovers. This is the one time of year she would let me eat pie for breakfast. The pecan pie would be cooled from all night in the fridge and be perfectly caramelized that allowed it to be the perfect on the go pie. My stepmother and I would curl up in the living room and as frost started etching fractured art on the window panes, we lit the fire and reheated generous slices of apple pie. The tang of the Granny Smith apples was evened out with the spices. Juicy and sweet only comes from the perfect cooking times. Long enough to heat, soften the apples, and bake the dough; but prior to the point in which the fruit becomes mush. Pumpkin pie was always my least favorite of the trio, but by far my favorite to make. The simplistic beauty of its design paired with the intricacy of the spices always caught my mind as a match made in heaven. Like all of our pies, the crust was homemade and we’d have to make the crust the day before. There was no canister of “Pumpkin Pie Spice”; there was the cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and sugar laid out in front of the mixing bowl. Seeing everyone in the family enjoying the pies, acknowledging the effort, care, and love we put into all that was baked. That is what pie is to me.