I subscribe to a lot of blogs, and thanks to laziness and procrastination, I get really behind on reading them. There are times that I wonder why I don’t just unsubscribe to most of them if I can’t keep up. But then there are days like today when I have the time to catch up on my reading and I find so many interesting things out there. You may find this surprising, but many of these blogs have nothing to do with food. So today I thought I’d give you a short tour of some of the other things that fill my mind when I’m not dreaming of all of the delicious ways to enjoy food. [Continue reading...]
Tagged as: angry chicken, blogs, craftoholic, crazy aunt purl, ecosalon, ligher footstep, nablopomo, sew mama sew, small steps toward greener lifestyle, tie one on
And yet I am pieless.
About a week ago, I finished reading American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America’s Back Roads
by Pascale Le Draoulec. From the first page through the last I craved pie. How could I not? Riding along with Pascale through small town America sampling pie and talking about pie with people who still make pie from scratch. It makes me want a slice of pie just thinking about it. The book includes recipes she collected on the road: everything from blueberry-peach to shoofly pie and lots in between. I hope to someday try more than a few of these recipes.
Since finishing the book, I’ve been thinking a lot about the art of pies. The underlying theme of Pascale’s book is that people just don’t make pies any more. We’ve all begun to settle for store bought or manufactured instead of slowing down to make the pies our grandmothers made. We’re all in a hurry. And you cannot make pie in a hurry. Crust requires patience. Perhaps this is why I haven’t baked a pie despite the intense pie cravings while reading this book… I just haven’t been able to slow down long enough to make a crust.
I’m not scared of crusts. I make pies. But really only around Thanksgiving (pumpkin and pecan). And really, the from-scratch pumpkin pies are a relatively recent thing that I started a couple of years ago. I love it now. And could not, at this point, go back to store bought pumpkin pie. Ever.
But apple pie? Cherry pie? Rhubarb pie? (What do you know about rhubarb? It’s still a mystery to me. I’ve been looking for it at the farmer’s market so that I can stop saying that I’ve never had it. Hopefully I’ll find some soon). Mostly, I’d rather make cobbler because cobbler is easier. And cobbler is faster. But because of that, cobbler doesn’t have the same soul as pie. It’s delicious and I would not turn down a warm cobbler, but… you know what I mean? It feels like pie has become antiquated or something… doesn’t quite fit into our fast-paced modern world.
But you know what? We could all use a little break. Just slow down a little, and enjoy the quiet stillness of an early morning. Tie on your favorite apron. And make pie.
That’s exactly what I plan to do very soon. Between America Pie and the latest pie themed apron contest at Tie One On, all signs are pointing me toward pie. (I love aprons. Especially fun girly ones… I plan to turn the cherry fabrics in the photo above into just such an apron).
So Pie it shall be. Of course, I’ll let you know all about it. I just can’t decide what sort of pie. What’s your favorite pie?
Tagged as: american pie, aprons, art of pie, tie one on
