Pondering Pie

You will have noticed that I have been absent for a week or so.  That’s because I have been in tons of pain, in Victoria, with an infected tooth.  Infected teeth seem to me to be one of those things that go against all reason and order but I suppose we have them to remind us, depressingly, that we still reside under the law of natural man?  Anyway, I have been in the dental surgery and recuperating at home, and I honestly wish that 20 years and 4 surgeries ago when this tooth first started to give me trouble that I’d had it pulled and gotten a denture instead.

Despite recent events last weekend I made some turnovers.  These used to be referred to as ‘children’s pies’ or ‘hand pies’ so I figured I was still within the meaning of the act if I made them.  I tried Dorie Greenspan’s sour cream pastry and filled them with spiced pears and a bit of butter.  I think they turned out pretty well.   This weekend I haven’t been up to anything although I am now, excitingly, on solid food, and so I ate some pie last night my mum made.  She did an apple pie with a milk pastry which of course turned out to be excellent.  Sometimes I get a bit discouraged thinking I will never catch up to my mother’s skill level.  Of course, she has some 30 years’ head start on me.   At any rate, I am going to have to try a milk pastry at some point because it was so delicate.

Yesterday I was meditating on my pie project and asking myself what I want to get out of this whole thing.  What is my goal?  I thought about how last year (two summers ago) I was in Victoria and had a pie shell, so I baked it, filled it with pastry cream, and covered it with strawberries.  My nephew John had some, then came to find me.  He put his arms around my waist and told me that “this is now my favorite pie”.  In my dream world that would happen every week–but it can’t.  So in lieu of that, here are my two goals:

1. Improve my pastry making skills so that I have a lighter hand
2. Come up with three new pie recipes that are both really good to eat and useful to make

Last night I also went through my recipe book library here in Victoria, reading up on pies and selecting a few recipes to try later this year.  I was also curious as to the difference between ‘pie’ and ‘tart’.  One author, Flo Braker, distinguishes between them by the pastry.  Pie pastry, she says, is unsweetened, while tart pastry is sweetened.  Marion Cunningham says that tarts are shallower and always uncovered.  All of that sounds right to me, though I’ve made fruit pies with a bit of sugar in the pastry.