I’m baking my way through Ken Haedrich’s fantastic cookbook, Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade PieIf you like the way my pies look and want to try making some on your own, I would urge you to go find yourself a copy. The book is written in an easy-to-ready, conversational style that makes even the most unfamiliar methods of rolling a crust or concocting a custard seem very simple.

In case you were wondering…

If I’m going in order? Nope. I like to use local, fresh ingredients when I can. And it just wouldn’t make sense to make, say, 25 apple pies in a row, and then the same number of icebox and ice cream pies in a row…it would become a bit annoying.

If I have a time limit? No. I don’t want to stress myself out, and this isn’t Julie and Julia. Also, my life circumstances have kind of dictated how often I’ve been able to bake…I only made one pie during my four-month stay in India, in a tiny convection oven! (Ovens are quite a novelty there.) I came up with this mission a little less than two years ago, and I anticipate I’ll be working on it for at least another four or five.