This post begins a series on pies, tarts, and galettes in all their many forms. Thanks to SF Food Wars for providing the inspiration to make pies and for Driscoll’s Berries for providing the blackberries you’ll see in many of these pies.
Pie.
It’s a simple three letter word, yet it holds a lot of weight. For all you bakers out there, stop laughing, I’m not just making a pie weights pun. I’m serious. People both love pie and fear it. It’s everywhere right now, and is in the midst of a serious resurgence. Though it may be something we associate with small-town America grandma’s kitchen it seems the pie has been around it’s recognizable form since the 1400’s.
When you think pie, do you think apple, blueberry, cherry? I have a wholly different experience. I am a first generation American my grandmother, turned out galettes and tartes like nobody’s business, but I never tasted an American-style pie in my early childhood. The syrupy store-bought fruit pies of the 70’s and 80’s were extremely off-putting to me. Then there was “the November incident”. I ate cherry pie on the morning my brother was born. Taking advantage of the fact my parents weren’t around, I thought I could get away with dessert for breakfast (who did I think I was, Stephanie Shih?). I paid dearly, and so did the car upholstery. In fact, it paid all the way to the hospital. That’s all it took; I grew up thinking (gasp) … get the recipe
I know it’s supposed to be wordless, but…
Inspired By: Tami Hardeman of Running With Tweezers. Happy Birthday, Sweets! You really made me crave a sandwich.
PS: Tami, I know I used artificial lights, and there’s a brown spot on my lettuce, but you inspired me to eat a sandwich for dinner and you made me miss you with your post. Don’t cringe too much.
XO
Joshua and I were cuddled up on the sofa- me working on my laptop, he probably watching cute kitten videos. Ruby dog was in her usual spot, nestled in between us when I noticed her sweet white muzzle was red and a little bumpy. At first, we thought she and her pal Mabel played tug of war a little too rough- bumping heads, but a couple of minutes later, her face was redder, and puffier, and her adorable little forehead wrinkles were not so little. By the time we decided to rush her off to the vet, little miss Ruby had gotten sick all over the bedroom carpet.
Upon our arrival at Mission Pet Hospital, Ruby was (reluctantly) taken to the back without us. Our vet came out and confirmed what we suspected; Ruby was having an allergic reaction. They gave her benedryl and a shot of steroids, and apparently, she was doing a bit better already. They wanted to keep her for the rest of the day, so of course, I was mopey about not going home with my pup. I hate to think of her in a little kennel at the vet all day.
When we got home, there was a box on my front porch; I hadn’t ordered anything so I smiled thinking, avocados! I had signed up to receive a box of California Avocados from Foodbuzz and the California Avocado Commission, but didn’t know for sure if I was on the list to get them. I’ll … get the recipe
You may have noticed that it’s been radio silence over here for more than a week, but if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you know that I’ve been waist deep in pie. SF Food wars Pie or Die took place over the weekend, and I was in my kitchen literally every spare moment of every day for the past couple of weeks.
I was set on developing a pie with flakiest crust imaginable, the sweetest honey mead caramel, bruléed nectarines from Blossom Bluff Orchards, and juicy sweet blackberries cooked in blackberry honey wine. I want to give a huge thanks to Driscoll’s Berries who donated their luscious organic blackberries for my pie. The berries are so rich in flavor, juicy, and sweet and the folks that work there are pretty darned sweet too.
Saturday morning, my darling friend Kimmie from Full Circle Adventures arrived from San Diego. I love Kimmie for this, you see, she just packed up and moved from San Francisco about two weeks ago. Kimmie is an amazing baker (and storyteller), she kept me calm in the kitchen during a series of setbacks and made this weekend more fun than I can tell you. You can follow Kimmie on Twitter and Facebook too for lots of cupcake talk, fun banter, and (if you were around last night) Mavs happiness.
I will bring you a full write up soon, and I will share with you, a pie crust recipe, that is the best I’ve ever … get the recipe
I don’t know whether to call this experiment a success or a monumental failure. Certainly, if you look at the cost, I have failed and in a rather grand fashion. If you factor in taste, put a tick back in the success column. Looks, hmm… if you like your vodka to look rather like orange juice, SCORE!, but I am guessing you do not, so, fail again. Does learning count? Is no experiment a failed experiment?
I’ll back up a bit. Christianna, my lovely friend from Burwell General Store leads 20+ food bloggers in this really cool project every month. We remake vintage recipes from a little book called All-Day Singin’ and Dinner on the Ground. This is the fourth swap, I’ve participated in. My past recipes involved turning an old school cake into this lemon cake with rosemary caramael, Ozarkian Taffy Apples into these sopapillas, and Grandma’s chicken stew with drop biscuits into this Thai curry.
Finding The Inspiration:
I had a bit of a hard time deciding what to do this time. I thought of doing desert gnocchi, but someone jumped on that pretty quickly, then I thought of making some sort of pan-fried breaded croquette with a sweet oozy filling, but I found myself feeling uninspired by any of those things. I thought I had settled on a homemade shake and French fries for dipping (yum). I was discussing this plan with my husband over a plate of fries and a soy gelato shake when … get the recipe
So, I may have written my first post on Blogher Food on the plane home, and my second one over the first three days I was home. Overall, I think there are 2,500 words in my trash bin. My time in Atlanta was such a whirlwind, it was difficult to find a way to describe it. I hope this conference survival guide/blogherfoodalogue will suffice.
1.You can never be too prepared or have too many pretty dresses:
Irvin and I worked late nights and long Saturday afternoons in cafes getting ready for our session on Branding and Design for Food Bloggers. In the weeks leading up to the conference, If I wasn’t working on our presentation, I was certainly thinking about it. Of course, it wasn’t all work, I was also thinking about which dresses to pack. All of this working & wardrobe planning really seemed to pay off as I got very kind feedback on both the panel we lead and my choice of dresses. As a side note, a modified version of our presentation will be available for download, soon. Another note, I buy most of my dresses at pinupgirlclothing.com and bettiepageclothing.com
2. Be like the president:
Irvin & I booked separate flights- 20 minutes apart from the same airport. Mind you, this was not on purpose or anything. But, when his flight was delayed for 5 hours, and he was told “Boarding is not imminent”, there was a part of me that was thinking it was a … get the recipe
