Bear Lard Pie

18 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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The story continues at the end of August. (We’re catching up, slowly, we are.) It was a Sunday. I flew back home from a trip to Pennsylvania and New Jersey and landed at about one in the afternoon, California time. I already had friends in town; they’d beat me. About an hour later, Emily and I were heading three hours into the desert to pick up Matt, Paul, and Amanda; they’d finished hiking the John Muir trail the day before. Destination: Lone Pine.

(This is Emily. We took her to the Pacific Ocean for the first time later in the week, and she was really cute about it.)

We drove through some incredibly boring stretches where we said to ourselves why would anyone live here? And we also saw a farm proudly selling multiple kinds of jerky, stunning red rock cliffs, and a desert thunderstorm, which was eerily beautiful.

Everyone was tired when we got home. The washing machine got to work, and in the meanwhile there was a funny period of time where everyone wore Levi’s clothes.

Along with showers, clean clothes, and sleep, the hikers needed one more thing to complete their recovery process: food. Pie.

To go along with the wilderness theme we’ve got going on here, I had recently acquired a jar of bear lard from Northern California. I won’t get into the nitty gritty details…in fact, I don’t even know them. Just know that if someone asks you, hypothetically, if you would use bear lard in a pie crust, and you say yes, you can safely expect that the situation won’t be hypothetical for long.

I hadn’t made lard pie pastry before, due mainly to the fact that I don’t really trust whatever kind of lard can be bought at the supermarket.

I guess that kind of mentality is exactly how I end up with products made from bears.

Not to be gross, but the smell of the stuff when I opened the lid of the jar was a bit disconcerting. Like, yeah. It smelled strongly like an animal. Which I suppose makes sense. I made everyone else smell it, and I couldn’t get a consensus on whether or not to use based on smell alone. But, lest this bear die in vain, I decided I needed to carry on. I’m glad I did. Not only did the smell and taste disappear entirely once the pie was baked, but the crust was incredibly soft and flaky. Quite different from the results of using butter, but in a very pleasant way.

I didn’t use a recipe for the filling in this pie; I had lots of pluots from my in-laws’ tree (along with bear, another truly Californian ingredient) and mixed them with blueberries.

I wish my back patio could always look like this.

The Secret Life of Pies

06 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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berry, blackberry, blueberry, peach, raspberry

I mentioned in my last post that there is often not enough pie to go around at the Camp. And it’s true. If I had an abundance of time and fruit trees, I’d feed pie to everyone every day. Since the sad truth is that I cannot produce pies at this rate, the distribution of available pie sometimes turns into a rather covert affair, including late night rendezvous, fork-fights, and sometimes even bribery.

I was lucky enough to get to stay in my friends Rachel and Vinnie’s cabin during Operation Onesimus again this year. For more explanation on what that is, you should jump back to this post from last year regarding the Onesipies. I once again faced the same challenges to pie baking, including the lack of a proper rolling pin (see above.)

I didn’t follow a recipe for either of the pies featured in this post. This first one featured a combination of delights from the local farm…blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. (The rolling pin was from the farm too and was also a delight when mixed with sparkling water and limes, for the record.)

Can I just say that it is extremely difficult to keep pie crust from browning in a very tiny and very hot oven? And can I also say, I’m getting pretty proud of my lattice-weaving abilities. A little crooked, yes. But steadily improving.

This pie was also largely berry-based, but had a healthy helping of white peaches in it too.

I got fancy with the top crust here and grated it with a cheese grater, the way Ken taught me how to when I made his Rainier Cherry Pie.

This is Rick Szabo. Pie is his self-proclaimed favorite thing.

True love.

I guess the secret’s out now. Onesimus attendees, you now know something that you may have suspected and feared already…namely, that your teachers and cooks don’t go to bed early. They stay up and eat pie. Without you. Sorry about that.

(Hey, at least now you know so that next year you can try to sneak into the secret pie parties…right?!)

(Warning: the picture below may contain graphic violence.)

Suffice it to say that this pie did not survive the night.

Now, let’s turn our attention to Mr. Grated Crust. He was being enjoyed a sneaky slice at a time by various friends and relations.

Sometimes when you leave part of a pie in your cabin, you come back to find that it has greatly diminished in size. In this instance, the pie thieves left a thoughtful payment of pocket change wrapped in a paper towel, placed neatly in the then-emptier pie pan.

What kinds of things have you done to get your hands on some pie?

Summer Solstice

30 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Apple Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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apple, lemon, Minnesota, orange, pear, rhubarb

On the afternoon of the Summer Solstice, Grandmother was taking her well-earned daily nap, Aunt Sarah and cousin Matt were swimming off the dock, and Levi and Uncle Joe were shopping til they dropped at Gander Mountain. Granddad and I worked on a puzzle and made this pie. He has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember much of anything these days, but I think baking is a relatively familiar territory for the following reasons.

1. He has eaten possibly hundreds of my Grandmother’s delicious pies (blueberry and apple are the best kinds.)

2. “Grandfather bread” is a term used in my family to refer to the amazing bread he used to make every week in his bread machine. Grandmother has since taken over the breadmaking (Zante currant is the best kind.)

3. He used to be a research chemist, and what is baking, really, other than edible chemistry? (Post-Its and Scratch and Sniff were some of the best projects he worked on.)

I told Granddad that we were going to make an “Experiment Pie,” meaning that I had no recipe to follow. He laughed and stirred the filling: rhubarb, an apple, a pear, a little bit of pomegranate-lime juice, a squeeze of lemon juice, lemon zest, orange zest, powdered ginger, and nutmeg.