Pie #3: Deconstructed Berry

Did I mention I like pie?

Oh right I did. But it bears repeating. I love pie. Pie for breakfast, pie for lunch, pie before bed, sweet pies, savory pies, fruit pies, rustic pies. There is nothing better than pie.

There are cold, soggy diner pies with canned filling that I don't care for, but give me a slice of flaky, salty crust with a sultry fruit filling and I'm yours.

I was even paid in pie once.

When I was an undergrad at Sarah Lawrence, my friend Emilie and I, on a New York City excursion, got chatted up by a recently divorced mother of two who needed help packing up her Chanel suits and Hermes china for a swiftly approaching move to a more modest Upper East Side Apartment. She offered to pay us and we had nothing better to do so she gave us her address and the following weekend we showed up at her front door with an overnight bag and our sleeves rolled up. 

Before beginning to pack she gave us a lengthy and totally unnecessary tour of her apartment, including the many closets where all her Chanel, Dior and Yves Saint Laurent garments hung protected by silk hangers and plastic garment bags. Then sitting on the floor of her living room Emilie and I began to wrap and stack what seemed like hundreds of Hermes cups, saucers, gravy boats, soup tureens and plates, with pages from the New York Times, George Bush's face disappearing into a soup bowl and Donald Trumps hair whisping across a salad plate. She retreated into the kitchen and we were left to pack until dinner. 

Dinner was unmemorable but afterwards, when all the dishes were clean, crumbs swept into the proper receptacle, and we'd done a little more packing, she emerged from the kitchen with a homemade pecan pie still warm from the oven. 

This was and is the best pecan pie I ever ate. The crust was perfect, a slightly dark, flaky, buttery crust crimped to perfection, and the filling, oh my God the filling, the pecans were toasty and brittle drowned in a gooey, chewy filling and laced with deep dark bittersweet chocolate that melted in your mouth. She confessed to mixing caramels into the filling but would not divulge the secret family recipe and promised we could have a slice for breakfast before getting back to packing.

Emilie and I could not sleep that night. Our main concern was, what will she pay us?!! We naively had not sorted that out in advance. But the thing that kept us up was, what was in that pie?!! Should we raid the kitchen and flee in the middle of the night? Start a pecan pie business and become millionaires? 

The next day we worked until our fingers were black with newsprint and it was time to go, we held up our end of the bargain and figured it would be better to graduate from college than wind up in the slammer. We exchanged many thank yous with this woman, back and forth until it became ridiculous and then she pressed $100 into Emilie's hand. What? Two days of work and we were to split $100! Did she think she was doing us a favor? Our blood pressure rose as we stared at her smiling and saying a final thank you through clenched teeth. "Wait, I almost forgot!" she said and ran back into the kitchen. What did she forget? Three hundred dollars still sitting on the counter? She emerged carrying an aluminum pie plate covered in foil and we could guess what was inside. 

We dashed as fast as we could to Grand Central Station and when finally aboard the train back to Bronxville, ate the entire pie with our bare hands, licking each finger clean, one by one. 

I will one day try to recreate this pie but not today. In my quest for more and more pie I remembered the delicious little pie crust cookies my mother would make with the scraps, sprinkling them with cinnamon sugar, making a tasty little snack to eat while the pie was still baking. 

If you don't want to go to all the trouble of baking a pie, this is totally satisfying and a quick fix. I think it would even make a nice end to a dinner party. 

And if you have any pie stories, I'd love to hear them. You can never have enough.

Deconstructed Pie

Filling: assorted summer fruit, washed and sliced if necessary (I used peaches, raspberries and blueberries), a few tablespoons grand marnier or wine if you like, and or a little grated nutmeg and a little confectioners sugar if you like. Mix everything together and let sit.

Topping: one 8 oz. container creme fraiche, combined with the zest of one lemon and 1 tbs. confectioners sugar. Stir till smooth and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Flaky Pie Crust: Cut 8 tablespoons of fat (any combination of lard, butter or non-hydrogenated margarine) into 1 1/2 cups flour (all purpose, whole wheat pastry or a combination) and a good pinch of salt until small crumbs form. Mix in two or three tablespoons of ice water to bind together, but still crumbly, roll out to 1/8" on a floured surface, cut into whatever shape you like. Mix together 2 parts granulated sugar to one part cinnamon, sprinkle and bake in a 400 degree oven until brown and toasty. Let cool.

To assemble, place fruit in a bowl, spoon a little creme fraiche on top and stick a few pastry crust cookies in the side.