I 

should have gone for the easy recipe. I should 
have listened to Ina Garten’s signature quip — 
“store bought is fine.” Had I added the adjective, 
“beginner,” in the google search bar, my Sunday would 
have likely been much less involved. 
But I couldn’t seem to help myself. When I opened 
my browser, I wasn’t thinking about my technical 
ability, or the fact that every time I make mac and 
cheese, the pot of water bubbles over.
Perhaps my overconfidence was a consequence of 
watching one too many YouTube episodes of Clare 
Saffitz’s, “Gourmet Makes.” Saffitz’s candid approach 
to reverse engineering Sour Patch Kids or Twinkies 
make cooking seem meditative. A sort of “anything 
goes” outlook where when you add too much milk to 
that bechamel, you just whisk in more cream. Oh, how 
naïve I was.
I

t was one of those drizzly September afternoons 
described by local weatherman as “scattered 
showers.” The type of forecast that offers no 
insight whatsoever and subsequently makes you 
question the usefulness of anchormen waving their 
arms in front of a radar map.
The brisk air had flipped the page to the season of 
burning your tongue on hot tea and cringing from the 
sensation of slipping on jeans again. 
An unexpected urge to bake a pie simmered inside 
of me. Once my eyes devoured the golden crackle of 
Bon Appetit “Best Apple 
Pie,” I knew I could stop my 
recipe search. I had found 
the pie. All it took was that 
cover photo. It was the sort 
of pie whose crust looked 
like it was kissed by mother 
nature.
I wandered downstairs 
to recruit a sous-chef … my 
mom. I knew her years of 
peeling apples for my school 
lunchbox would be essential 
to my success. It had taken 
me so long to peel a golden 
delicious apple the night 
before, that my dad had 
boiled a tea kettle before I 
finished.
When my mom nodded 
her head and granted me 
access to the kitchen, I was 
giddy. What could be more 
quintessential than a mother 
and daughter baking a pie? 
It was a moment cut straight 
from 
the 
Mrs. 
March’s 
kitchen 
in 
the 
“Little 
Women” playbook. 
A 

scan of our pantry 
confirmed 
my 
suspicions 
— 
we 
are not a baking family. No 
mason jars clouded with 
flour ready for measuring 
when an inclination to bake 
strikes. It seemed the only 
head start I was getting were 
the expired sugar crystals at 
the bottom of the Domino 

tub from last year’s holiday sugar cookies.
A trip to the grocery store was necessary. While 
strolling the aisles, I came to realize the complexity 
of the recipe I had selected. This should have been 
obvious with the first item on the ingredient list — 
vanilla bean pods. Not vanilla extract, the actual pods. 
A 10-minute scavenger hunt through the produce 
section led me to the vanilla bean pods — located 
right above shitake mushrooms priced at $6.99 for 
two pods. That was the only sign I needed to tell me I 
am going to skip the step of scraping the seeds of the 
vanilla pod to infuse apple cider. 
And then came the next item, cardamom. My fifth-
grade history class interactive activity about the Silk 
Road and the spice trade had not prepared for me for 
the sticker shock, nearly $11. I was beginning to think 
that homemade was not necessarily cheaper in the 
realm of baked goods. I decided to pursue my backup 
plan and head to the bulk foods aisle where I scooped 
a spoonful of spices into a plastic bag and sheepishly 
headed to the cashier. I am pretty sure I paid more for 
the plastic baggy than the spice itself. It was time to 
head back to the kitchen. 
W

e decided to divide and conquer — my 
mom would make the apple filling and I 
would make the pie crust. In all honesty, 
this decision was driven more by poor apple-peeling 
skills than cooking efficiency. As I began to combine 

the butter and flour, it became clear to me why people 
buy the neat Pillsbury pie crust instead. I was staring 
at a bowl of crumbles; the dough was not dough. It 
was a pebbly bowl that, no matter how much I mixed, 
refused to form. My mom was humming along, and I 
started to worry that we were going to end up making 
applesauce instead of pie. No dough meant no pie. 
So, I mashed the bits of dough rounds together 
and prayed that the carefully timed choreography of 
chilling the dough in the fridge, then the freezer, the 
room temperature would yield something rollable. 
T

he pie took much longer than anticipated. I 
credit this to my failure to read through the 
recipe before deciding to commit. Vanilla 
beans? Cardamon? Three hours of chilling? I guess 
this is the life of an apple pie baker. 
But, in the whirlwind of expensive ingredients, 
pebbled dough and a carefully timed dance of setting, 
heating and cooling, a pie came out of the oven. After a 
week of exams, there was something satisfying about 
spending an entire afternoon doing something that 
could be gone in a couple bites. 
While I should have probably heeded my mom’s 
advice and added that adjective “beginner” to my 
recipe search, there is something to be said for going 
for the romance of an oozy, delicious, crystallized pie. 
Apple crumble just wasn’t going to cut it that rainy 
afternoon.

3B

Wednesday, October 23, 2019 // The Statement
3B

BY SHANNON ORS, DEPUTY STATEMENT EDITOR
A story about pie

ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE

