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Fall is my favorite time of year, not just because
I get to turn my clocks back or snuggle by the fire with a
good book and hot cocoa, but mostly because Fall is the time
of year hearty cooking makes it back into our kitchens.
When I was a kid, my mother kicked off the Fall
season with her Halloween supper of "Spook Soup",
"Goblin Biscuits" and "Witches Pie". She
would set the table using big autumn leaves, flying ghosts
and black cats. Linens were the colors of cinnamon, butternut
and spice.
 In the middle of the table was a big ceramic
pumpkin she had made in her weekly ceramic class. She would
ladle steaming homemade potato and leek soup into the life
size pumpkin, garnish it with bacon and parsley and present
it to her brood of six. Her Bisquick biscuits were hot and
fluffy and drenched in butter and Aunt Gladys’s homemade
pepper jelly, spicy and sweet and savory, all in one full
mouth bit!
And the pie… oh, how we loved my mother’s
pie! I remember standing next to her when I was eight years
old, learning her secret to a perfect crust…
“Make sure your butter and lard are good
and cold. If you use all butter your crust will burn and if
you use all lard your crust won’t be flaky and if you
touch it too much it will react like a banana you’ve
tossed around the room, it will get mushy and have no oomph.”
“And when you roll out the dough,”
she continued, “make sure you don’t use your rolling
pin like a weapon and beat up the dough. Be firm, and make
each movement count, because if you roll it too much it will
be tough as your Uncle Bill’s shoe leather. Keep your
pastry board dry, cool and sparing of flour.”
I have followed those instructions to the “T”
every time a make a pie crust and without fail, my dough is
light, flaky and melts into the corners of my mouth. And I
am happy to say my own daughter has perfected her pie crust
as well, finishing off each perfect round with a scalloped
edge.
But it wasn’t always that way……
I remember the Thanksgiving I volunteered to make the pies,
and so does everyone else in my family.
I fancied myself as a somewhat gifted cook,
what I failed to realize was I was no Martha in the kitchen
when it came to measuring, better known as baking. I have
since come to terms with my impatience when it comes to the
art of baking and now more times that not I leave it up to
my good friends at Douce France in Palo Alto where seven days
a week I can get perhaps the best fresh fruit tart, decedent
double chocolate something or rathers and enjoy every bit
as if I had slaved hours over a double boiler.
No, I am not a baker, I am a cook.
It all started with a pound of flour, a bit
of salt and way too much water. It was my sister Debbie’s
year to host Thanksgiving, she and my entire family had gone
out for the afternoon and I had full run of the kitchen. Clad
in my festive autumn apron, Mozart filling the air with melody,
I began my preparation:
2-1/2cups all purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 lb. chilled unsalted butter
1/3 plus of ice cold water
Cut the butter into the flour mixture until
it is that consistency of cornmeal. Then gradually add cold
water, a bit at a time, tossing gently with a fork. When it
sticks together, press into two balls, cover and refrigerate.
Sounds easy enough… but as I added the
water from the measuring cup a bit at a time, it slipped out
of my hand and landed, measuring cup and all, into the bowl
filled with flour.
Uh-oh…that’s okay, I simply will add
more flour…
And so began what I call “The Perfect Bowl
of Cereal” Too much milk leads to more cereal which leads
to more milk which leads to more cereal…ad in·fi·ni·tum.
By the time my family returned, I had made six
pies, all of which I threw away. I made three trips to the
grocery store, changed the recipe from The Joy of Cooking to Better Homes and Gardens to Betty Crocker Baking
Basics and back again to The Joy of Cooking. It
was however, no “Joy”!
My autumn apron was covered in pumpkin, globs
of rejected dough stuck to the floor like gum on a sidewalk,
every cupboard door was fingerprinted with flour and mincemeat
and I looked like the Michelin Man exploded all over me!
My brunette hair was covered in a layer of fine
flour and I was standing over another ill fated pie, crying,
when my father came to the kitchen… He put his hand on
my shoulder and patted it lovingly, like you would a son or
daughter that just broke up with their first boyfriend or
girlfriend. “It’s okay honey, there’s a Bakers
Square not far from here…” I wailed, got my car
keys, drove to Bakers Square and with great culinary humility
and relief I bought three pumpkin pies, one mincemeat and
my dad’s favorite — a big, fresh, apple pie.
The best part of that day… laughing and
eating pie with my family. And in the end, throwing the pie
plates away, instead of the pie.
So this holiday season, who cares if the pies
don’t turn out or if the turkey is a little dry, there
has to be a Douce France or a Bakers Square nearby. And we
all know gravy was always intended to make all things which
are dry, moist again. Just remember to laugh, and as my Aunt
Phyllis always said, “Get them good and hungry, give
them a stiff drink when they come in the door, and everything
will taste delicious!”
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November 2005 |
