practice pie

Just when I was beginning to despair about missing out on the holidays, and Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing this year, Ben and I got a phone call. It was one of Sam's friends inviting us to a big Thanksgiving dinner this Friday. (We don't get Thanksgiving day off here, of course, so it's just more convenient for everyone to celebrate on Friday night.) Anyway, she gave us all the details, and then, toward the end of the conversation, said: "By the way, I heard you and Ben like to bake. Could you bring a pie?"

It's true that Ben and I like to bake. But it is also true that I have never made a pie completely on my own in my life. I have sliced fruit for pies many times. I think I once helped my mom roll out a crust when I was a little girl. But I've never made a pie from beginning to end by myself. Of course, I didn't mention any of that when she asked us to bring a pie. I just agreed. Later, not wanting to embarrass myself by bringing a complete disaster of a pie to the dinner on Friday, I decided it was necessary to make a practice pie.

This venture was not with a couple of dilemmas.

Dilemma #1: Crisco is kind of hard to come by here, but is kind of necessary for a good, flaky pie crust. So, I had to make a trek out to The Good Friend Store, the local Western grocery mecca, where they carry all kinds of things you can't buy anywhere else in Tianjin. I wasn't sure if they would have Crisco there or not, but it turns out they had both regular Crisco, and butter-flavor Crisco. Dilemma #1 solved! (I also saw they had some carmel/chocolate swirl chocolate chips, which I didn't buy, but which I am seriously considering going back to get.)

Dilemma #2: I don't have a rolling pin. I made the best of things by using a floured smooth-edged glass, but I think I'm going to have to invest in a rolling pin. I just couldn't get that crust to roll out thin enough.

Dilemma #3: I don't have a pie pan. (Yeah, I know. Kind of an important part.) Sam and Zhou You have a pie pan, which they offered to let me use, but it was really cold last night, and I didn't want to bike over to their place in the cold to get it. I had a round cake pan, and I decided that, for a practice pie, that would be good enough. However, I soon discovered why we bake pies in pie pans and not round cake pans. The cake pan was so deep, and its straight sides made it really hard to do anything pretty with the top and bottom crusts, like fluting the edges. Mental note: get that pie pan before you make the "real" pie.

Anyway, I baked the pie, but it was certainly no masterpiece of a pie. I never got a picture of the whole thing--just a post-eating shot. Ben stayed up later than he wanted just so he could have a piece of the practice pie, so we attacked the thing pretty much as soon as it came out of the oven. Since we've already cut into it in the photo, it's kind of hard to see just how ugly my cake-pan pie turned out--although I think you get the idea. But trust me, it was ugly. Yipes.

On the up-side, I ended up with an apple pie that tastes really good, even if it is a terrible sight to see. There were a couple of moments when I regretted ever having promised to bring a pie, since this practice pie seemed such a disaster. But I think I learned some good lessons through the practice pie experience--I'm pretty sure it's going to turn out okay.