This is my father and me, circa about — well, let’s just say a long time ago.  Love that skinny tie, Dad!

 

My father’s always been my champion and hero.  He’s directly responsible for me growing up to be a writer, thanks to the hours of bedtime stories he read to me and my sisters,  reams of paper with which he provided me, endless patience he displayed in cheering on my fledgling efforts (which he always took seriously), and of course the copy of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style that he tucked into my Christmas stocking when I was 12.

Thanks for everything, Dad.  I love you!

 

 

It’s time to bust out those rolling pins, America!

I just love living in a country that sets aside a day each year to celebrate my favorite dessert.

What could possibly be better than pie? Not that I don’t love cake, cookies, cupcakes, candy, and sugar in all its many wondrous forms, but there’s something special about pie.  For one thing, it’s, well, baked into our history. Humans were making pies as early as 9500 B.C., when those clever Egyptians wrapped honey in an oatmeal crust.

Pie is baked into my family’s history, too.  I come from a long line of great pie bakers — and pie eaters.  I remember my mother telling me of the day she left Canada for “the Boston States,” as Nova Scotians used to call New England.  It was a big step for a small-town girl fresh out of nursing school, and as she boarded the train in Halifax that would carry her into her future, she was filled with mixed emotions: excitement, trepidation, self-doubt.  My grandmother saw her off at the station with homemade goodies to keep her well-fortified until she reached her destination:  a Thermos of beef stew, oatmeal bread, and apple pie, her favorite dessert.

I don’t know if the apple pie had anything to do with it, but my mother survived the journey and flourished in her new job in Connecticut.  On her days off, she’d board another train — this one bound for New York City, where she’d shop a little, explore a little, buy herself a ticket to a Broadway play, and then take herself out to lunch someplace fancy — I remember her mentioning Sardi’s as being one of her favorite spots.  And yes, she’d have pie for dessert.

Isn’t she something?

Gotta love those white gloves.

And so, in honor of National Pie Day, and in honor of my darling mother, here’s the Frederick family’s favorite recipe for apple pie!

FRENCH APPLE PIE

Unbaked pie shell

6-7 cups tart apples (we use Granny Smith’s), peeled, cored, and sliced paper thin

1 c. sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

A little extra butter for dotting on the apples

Topping:

½ c. butter

½ c. brown sugar

1 c. flour

Preheat oven to 425.  Roll out pie crust and pat it into pie plate.  Crimp edge.

In a large bowl, mix sliced apples with sugar and spices.  Pile into prepared crust and dot with half a dozen or so thin slices of butter.

In a separate bowl, cream butter and brown sugar, then add flour, working it in until the mixture begins to come together and the crumbles are about the size of peas.  Sprinkle over pie.  Cover loosely with tinfoil (this prevents the crust from burning) and bake at 425 degrees for 1-1/2 hours.  (Yes, it needs to bake that long!)  It’s a good idea to either cover the rack you’re baking it on with foil, or place the pie plate onto a cookie sheet or something to catch any drips.

Remove foil.  If topping is golden brown, pie is done.  If not, let it cook without the foil for another five minutes or so.

Cool and serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.  Yum!

My cousin Dorothy turned 99 a few weeks ago.  Isn’t she adorable?

Note the large red creature in the bottom left-hand corner of the photo.  That’s all she wanted for her birthday. Coming right up, I said!  My husband and I stopped by this weekend on our way to see our older son in Seattle, and we cooked up a good old New England style lobster feed, adding the three C’s:  homemade coleslaw, cornbread, and cupcakes.  Yum.

Dorothy is actually my grandmother’s first cousin.  She was born and raised on Nantucket, and moved to the Pacific Northwest right after World War II, when she and her first husband bought land in a remote corner of the Olympic Peninsula to homestead.  She has awesome stories to tell.  She walked across the Golden Gate Bridge the day it opened.  She was shipwrecked in China.  She was the first woman to manage the transportation department at Yellowstone National Park.  She served as postmistress for many years in her tiny town in Washington State, too, and published a book about its history.

A few years back she took me to see the cabin where she once lived.  The creek that rushes past it used to run so thick with salmon that you could practically walk across their backs to the other side, she told me.  Besides providing good fishing, the homestead was rich with berries and fruit trees, and they had a garden where they grew all their own food.  They raised chickens and goats for meat, eggs, and milk, and only had to drive into town for flour and staples. Unexpected dinner guests were never a problem, she said, showing me a photo of her pantry, whose shelves were lined from floor to ceiling with jars filled with every kind of food imaginable.  She’d put them all up herself.  Just thinking of the hours of work that represented left me speechless.  And feeling like a slacker.

Dorothy still lives in her own home, a snug nest from whose vantage point she keeps tabs on the world, including all the doings back East (she’s subscribed to the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror all  her life).   She has a wide circle of family and friends and is keenly interested in everything and everybody.  She’s witty, cheerful, optimistic, fun-loving, and kind, and she has a heart as big as the world.

She’s my hero.

Happy birthday, Dorothy!  I can’t wait to bring you lobster again next year.