On the Move

I don't usually dread packing up my house and moving to a new one, but this is the first time I've had to move a whole kitchen. Gadgets, glassware, 15 pie plates and way more cast iron than the average 21st century girl should have. I've been thinking a lot about Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott's how-to writing book, where she tells a story about how her father helped her through a bout of grade-school writer's block by telling her that she should write her report about American fowl "bird by bird." It's good advice, and not just for writing. "Box by box, " I'm telling myself as I pack four years of life into cardboard and bubble wrap. That and what my friend Kristen texted me a night I needed help: Keep everything get more boxes. Like this one, full of twenty years of writing notebooks.

I'm also on the move in hyperspace. Allow me to introduce you to my brand new all-pie-all-the-freakin'-time blog: Pie-Scream. In my posts I’ll treat you to pie poems, recipes, tips, interviews, and a bit of natural history. Good Egg will remain online, but this will be my last post here. I hope you'll join me at www.pie-scream.com. It's a Wordpress site, so you can follow my posts and "like" the blog on Facebook much more easily. Obviously, I hope you will. Thanks so much for reading and baking and commenting with me over the years as I wrote bird by bird, box by box, and blog by blog. The future is pie. I'll see you there.

More from the Iowa State Fair

1. Shortly after Mom finished grad school in Iowa City, my parents left the state. Dad had visited the Pacific Northwest when he was a teenage boyscout on a canoe trip. While high on evergreens and humidity-free air, he decided it was the best place on earth. Mom wanted to be where Dad was, so when he got a job in Kennewick, that was it: moving day. They didn't mind that Kennewick was a suburb of the Hanford Nuclear Site, or that it was in the desert. It was in Washington State. It wasn't Iowa. That was good enough.

2. No one ever sat me down and told me the true story of how two young, ambitious, left-brained Iowans ended up in Washington state with a poet for a daughter and a lawyer for a son. I couldn't tell you where I got my information or even if it's accurate because I'd rather not ask. I like my story. I like it so much that I wouldn't be surprised to find out I made it up.

3. When I was a child, we didn't go to Hawaii or Mexico or the Grand Canyon for summer vacation. We went to Omaha, Carroll, Makoqueta, Dubuque and Waterloo. In all the important ways, my summer vacations haven't really changed. My Aunt Gail lives outside Des Moines now, so now I go to Des Moines. I decided to come here instead of applying to a fancy writing conference this summer not because I'm not ambitious, but because when a super cool lady who lives in the American Gothic house offers to host you for a writing and baking residency and set you up with a pie-judging gig at the Iowa State Fair, you don't say no. You say yes, board a plane, and go meet your new friend Beth Howard. Besides. I can write in Iowa. I'm doing it right now.

4. The worst pie I had at the Machine Shed Pie Contest was a sour cream raisin pie that used fat free sour cream and 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves in the filling. Teresa from Kitchen Collage in Des Moines says that you can't understand the appeal of raisin cream pie until you try one made with unpasteurized full-fat sour cream. That's how it's supposed to be made: with the rich and piquant ingredients a farmer has on hand during winter. I awarded first place to a lightly-spiced full-fat specimen decorated with cookie cut-outs and crenellated whipped cream because I did not want to stop eating it. That's the number one sign of a great pie.

5. The best pie I tasted at the Iowa State Fair was a first prize rhubarb pie with a glorious crust and just a touch of orange peel in the filling. I can't remember the name of the baker, but I know people heard it a lot that afternoon. Four or five women took most of the top honors even though we judged blindly. "The old pros come with clipboards," my aunt said, "and mark off their wins and losses."

6. About a half hour before the show started, a guy named Dale sat down across the aisle and struck up a conversation. I was cold at first, the way I'm cold to people who want to talk to me on the bus. Then I felt foolish--he's not hitting on me, I realize. He's Iowan. He just wants to chat. I'd say the Iowan habit of chat is unnerving, but it's not--it's disarming. What's unnerving is my reticence. Where did I learn to be wary of nice strangers? How does my "Seattle freeze" help me get along in Seattle?

7. Dale took a couple days off from his construction company ("I've built over 700 decks," he said, and I wondered where all that wood came from) to get up at three in the morning and bake perfect lemon meringue and peach custard pies. Later that afternoon when he won second place for his gorgeous lemon meringue pie, Aunt Gail heard him dismiss the award. "I'm not interested in second place," he said, but he kept his wide smile. Every time one of the old pros bagged another blue ribbon, she smiled modestly and waved to the appreciative crowd as if she was surprised. Except for a pretty blond woman named Kathleen, who grinned and clapped like she just won a bunch of money. Which, come to think of it, she might have. Beth Howard warned me that people take this competition very seriously. I've started to see what she means.

8. As part of my judging duties I was supposed to whisper feedback into my writer's ear. My writer's name was Carol. We're both hard of hearing. "Don't mark them down too harshly," she advised as she showed me the ropes. "The good ones will rise to the top anyway and there's no reason to make everyone else feel bad. People try really hard here." This is going to be a little like a writing workshop, I realized, except that I have to put the art in my mouth.

9. As the judging wears on, my feedback begins to fit a pattern, much like it does when I give my writing students a feedback sandwich. Flavorful crust, but tough. Nice meringue! And, Excellent peach flavor, but the filling is a bit too gummy. More lemon juice next time? "Don't take too long with any of the pies," Carol says. "Just decide and go. You've got a lot to cover." Carol isn't joking. They ask me to do the peach pie category next. "It has twelve, is that okay?" says a nice lady with napkins. "Yep," I say. "Bring it on."

10. I want to talk about how one should not make peach pie. I don't mean in general. I mean in the way I saw it made at the Iowa State fair. First of all, peach pie should never be garnished by one long white hair that makes the front row of the audience gasp when I pull it out and hold it up in shock. But mostly, peach pie should not be made with almond extract. It makes the peaches taste canned. Teresa at Kitchen Collage says the difference between successful addition of flavoring to peach pie is the use of an almond emulsion instead of flavoring. "Extract sits at the front of your mouth like bad salsa, while an emulsion is a back-end flavor. It should linger on your palate, not overwhelm the peaches." I say to hell with it all and use just a little nutmeg, salt, and lemon so all we taste is perfect peachy peach. Why Iowan bakers overwhelmingly relied on almond extract to flavor their pies makes absolutely no sense to me--I mean, they're so proud of whether or not they use Colorado or Missouri peaches. Why would they mask them in flavoring? Is it possible that people like the taste of canned peaches out here? I just can't believe it. If someone out there has a clue, please give it to me.

Tomorrow I drive to Eldon, Iowa, home of Beth Howard's Pitchfork Pie Stand and a bunch of houses Grant Wood didn't get around to painting. To be continued...

Greetings from the Iowa State Fair

I'm sitting on my Aunt Gail's screened-in porch in Des Moines, Iowa, trying to figure out where the cicadas are. Anyone from the midwest knows exactly what cicadas sound like, but somehow after all my summer vacations here I'd forgotten how shrill and persisent and loud they can be, and always somewhere leftward in the middle distance--though that might just be my deaf right ear missing the rightward frequency.

Anyway, I'm not in Iowa for the cicadas. I'm here for the pie. Yesterday I judged the Machine Shed Pie Contest at the Iowa State Fair. There was so much to see and do that I can't possibly say it all in one blog post, so I'm going to try little vignettes over the next week. The first one is short: see my ice cream cone? That's what they call a "single scoop" in Iowa. I'd post a picture of a pork chop on a stick, but I ate mine too fast.

Photos from a Pie Marathon (plus Whiskey Peach Galette)

Nine of sixteen pies

Maple Blue-Blackberry Pie

Apple Bacon Roquefort Pie

Blackberry Marmalade Galette

Mumbleberry Pie, Cherry Galette, and Whiskey Peach Chery Galette

Veggie Quiche with Green & Yellow Beans, Chard, Chevre, and Herbs

Fresh Berry & Marscarpone Pie

Lovely Pie Assistants (Jen & Kristen)

Buddies

If the pie buffet is larger than twelve pies, you can't just give your customers a menu. You have to give them a tour too. Thanks to Jen for letting me set a flour bomb off in her kitchen (13 pies in 16 hours!), thanks to Kristen for hawking my wares from the doorway so loudly and convincingly that I think I met half of Capitol Hill (or at least half of Capitol Hill's sweet lovers). Thanks to the dude from Florida who came in with an almost-finished 16 ounce cup of Molly Moon's ice cream shake and, after admitting that he'd already had a cupcake at Cupcake Royale, bought a huge piece of mumbleberry pie. And of course, thanks to Cakespy for hosting the best pie stand yet--it really is the sweetest shop in Seattle.

The last Pie Stand of 2011 will be in September. If you'd like to come, send me your e-mail.

My new favorite August pie is peach whiskey galette. It's really just an adult take on the peach ginger pie that won Best in Show at Cake vs. Pie last year, which proves to me that the best way to make up a pie recipe is to start with one that works and refigure a couple ingredients. Galette dough is easier to work with than an American-style butter crust, and it's a cinch to just throw in a plate and fold over fruit. I prefer ryes over bourbons for sweet pies because bourbon is already so sweet. I would suggest that you try rye with lemonade or ginger ale while you're waiting for your galette to cool, but I bet you've already thought of that.

Not a whiskey peach galette, but you get the idea.

Peach Whiskey Galette

Consider doubling this recipe to make two galettes. Just freeze one and bake it later.

1 recipe galette dough

3-4 large peaches or nectarines

3/4 cup clover honey

juice from 1/2 a lemon

2 shots Bulleit rye whiskey (about 3 to 4 ounces, depending on your shot glass)

pinch of salt

pinch of nutmeg

1/4 cup tapioca flour

a little milk

demerara sugar

Prepare galette dough and refrigerate while preparing the filling.

After removing the pits, cut peaches into 1/4-inch thick slices and place them in your pie pan. Pile them up in the pan until they're level with the top, then dump them into a large bowl. This is a reliable trick for figuring out how much fruit you'll need for a full pie that won't overflow in your oven. No need to peel the peaches unless they're really fuzzy.

Add honey, lemon juice, whiskey, salt, and nutmeg. Stir gently to mix, then taste. Adjust lemon and whiskey as needed. Once the filling tastes just right to you, add the tapioca flour and set the mixture aside.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Retrieve the galette dough from the refrigerator and roll it out on well floured wax paper. This dough can be quite wet, so it's really important to keep everything well floured and unsticky. If you have a pastry scraper, use it to move the dough 45 degrees (clockwise or counter--it doesn't matter) between each stroke of the rolling pin until the dough is too large to move easily. Once it's about 1/4 inch thick, roll it over your rolling pan (helping it off with the dough scraper all the while), center it over the pie pan, and place the dough into the pan. You could also just place the pan upside down over the dough and flip the whole thing over. Peel the wax paper off at a sharp angle and tuck the galette dough into the edges of the pie plate. Leave the dough edges alone for now.

Pour your peach filling into the galette crust and smooth it into a soft mound. Then grab the edge of the galette dough and bring it toward the center of the pie. Grab another edge about four inches or so from the last point and bring it toward the center of the pie. Do this all the way around until your galette dough looks rustic and pleated, and holds all the fruit just where it needs to be: in the pie.

Brush with milk and sprinkle with demerara sugar.

Bake on 425 for 15-20 minutes until the crust is blond and blistered. Lower the temperature to 375 and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. You'll know this galette is done with the crust is golden and the filling bubbles slowly.

Pie Stand at CakeSpy on August 6

Pie Stand returns! This time I'm setting up shop at CakeSpy (415 E Pine Street, Seattle), the sweetest space in Seattle. I'll have slices and hand pies for sale, including a couple fresh fruit and gluten free pies. We're open from noon until I sell out, so come sooner rather than later. Kids and small dogs welcome. This is a good time to get your whole pie orders in, so let me know now if you'd like to take a whole pie home by e-mailing me (kate.lebo at gmail). Copies of A Commonplace Book of Pie will be for sale at the shop.

The Menu

Peach Bourbon hand pies

Vanilla Cherry hand pies

Mumbleberry Pie

Rhubarb Ginger Pie

Peach Cherry Galette

Fresh Fruit & Mascarpone Pie

Lemon Shaker Pie

Apple Bacon Roquefort Pie

Asparagus Chevre & Thyme Pie

Fresh slices are $3-5, whole frozen pies are $35 for one, $60 for two.

For more info about CakeSpy, visit cakespy.com or cakespyshop.com. Please note the shop is not a bakery, it's a space for people who love baked goods. See you there!

Nosy Girl

My friend ‎Elizabeth has the coolest blog. It's called Nosy Girl. It's all olfactory all the time. She asks scientists and writers and other interesting people what they smell like and what they like to smell. They give her answers and a nosy self portrait. She turns the self portrait into a star chart and posts it all on the internet. You read. This week, she interviewed me.

I'm visiting friends and family in Portland this week, so if you're in the Portland/Vancouver metro area and you want to buy a pie, e-mail me quick (kate.lebo at gmail). I recommend rhubarb ginger or maple blueberry, but of course I'll make you anything.

Peach Rhubarb Pie

Cheap butter is a pastry killer. After scoffing at bakers who insist on expensive European butter, I bought a couple pounds of Darigold butter on sale. Embarrassing pastry incidents ensued immediately. Because I wanted to be able to use cheap butter (I'm unemployed and almost broke, after all) I ignored the signs, blaming the weather, refrigerator temperature, human error, the way Jason always wants me to see something cute Swiffer is doing right when I start rolling out the dough, until, finally, I took a couple hunks of Darigold dough to a photoshoot for the Washington State Fruit Commission and let myself be photographed having a pie disaster.

They had asked me and fourteen other bakers to contribute recipes to a pamphlet about Washington State-grown stone fruit. We were supposed to make pies while they took our pictures, so I was determined to make my pie and my person particularly photogenic. I got a haircut. I wore eyeliner. By some miracle, I did not get sunburned while riding horseback in the Methow Valley the weekend before. But Darigold had other plans for me--I could tell the minute I took the dough out of the commercial kitchen-sized refrigerator. It was hard. Unforgiving. I brought my disaster-waiting-to-happen to my prep station and asked Wendy Sykes of Four and 20 Blackbirds for help. Wendy was game. "What do you need me to do?" she asked. "Just be there," I said. "You sound like you need some wine," she said. I did. She got me some. Can you see why Wendy is my new favorite pie friend? She stood by with encouraging words as my dough smashed into floury fatty pieces under my rolling pin. I made a face and a deprecating remark. "Don't worry, " she said, "it's going to taste just fine."

The problem is the water content: cheap butter is made with more water than higher-fat European butters, so its chills harder. Waiting for the dough to warm up a bit only leads to the dreaded "warm but cold" phase, as Wendy put it, where the dough sticks to your rolling pin and breaks and the butter chunks don't roll easily. I had to patch and cajole and try not to let the heat of my frustration melt the pastry altogether. The bottom crust was a mess, but the top crust would be okay. I had a plan.

Cookie cutters. Martha Stewart loves them because they're cute. I love them because they flawlessly cover-up my pastry mistakes. My standby is a 3 inch biscuit cutter that cuts unruly pastry into small lift-able pieces that I can then layer on top of the pie. I use it for delicate gluten-free dough all the time (as evidenced here), and it worked like a charm for my pamphlet pie.

From now on I'm sticking to Land o Lakes and Kerrygold butter. Not even 2 for $5 Tillamook will tempt me.

While butter and I are on the outs, I'm trying out non-dairy fats like coconut oil, Crisco, lard, and Earth Balance sticks. My best success has been with Crisco so far. It isn't hippie-approved, but it is trans-fat free and extra flaky. A perfect complement to the tart-sweet jamminess of peach and rhubarb. Nectarines would work well for this pie too, and if you use a gluten free crust, you'll have a gluten free, dairy free, disaster free treat.

Peach Rhubarb Pie

One double crust pie recipe (butter or Crisco versions)

2 cups rhubarb sliced 1 inch thick

3 cups peaches, sliced 1/4 inch thick (unpeeled)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup tapioca flour

pinch of salt

big pinch of nutmeg

juice from half a lemon

splash of whole milk or cream

demerara sugar

Prepare the pastry. Once it's done chilling, roll it out on wax paper until it is 2 to 3 inches wider than a 9 inch pie plate. Invert the pastry into the pan, center it, peel of the wax paper, and tuck it gently into the pan. Trim excess dough and form an upstanding ridge. Refrigerate the bottom crust while you make the filling.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the rhubarb and peaches with the sugar, salt, nutmeg, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Mix gently. Sample the fruit. If it needs more sugar or lemon juice, add them now. Then sprinkle tapioca over all and mix gently.

Roll out the top crust. Retrieve the bottom crust from the refrigerator and mound the fruit mixture in it. Invert the top crust over the pie, center it, and peel off the wax paper. Trim the edges so they extend only 1 inch beyond the pie plate, then fold it into an upstanding ridge. Cut generous steam vents in the top crust, brush it with milk, and sprinkle demerara sugar thickly over all but the upstanding ridge of the crust.

Bake on 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes, or until the top crust is blistered and blond. Lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake for another 30-35 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling slowly through the vents and the top crust is golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack at least one hour before serving. Wrap leftovers loosely in a kitchen towel and leave them on the counter.

All-Shortening Pie Dough

Crisco has a higher melting point than butter, so all-shortening crusts hold their shape a little better than butter crusts. They're also extremely flaky but less rich than butter crusts.

All Shortening Pie Dough

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup of chilled Crisco

ice water

Fill a 2 cup liquid measure with about a cup of water, drop a few ice cubes in and put the whole thing in the freezer. It will chill while you prepare the rest of your crust.

Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Drop the Crisco into the flour and use your fingers to rub it into the flour. I do this by scooping the mixture into my cupped hands and rubbing it firmly between my thumb and fingers, letting the mixture fall back into the bowl. It will be much softer than butter, so it will mix faster--be careful not to over mix! Continue until the mixture resembles coarse sand and the Crisco is in smallish chunks.

Pour ice water onto the dough in a thin stream. Use a circular motion so that the water hits different parts of the dough. I pour for three or four seconds, for probably 1/4 cup of liquid, but I don't measure anymore so it's hard to say. Go by feel. Mix the dough with your hands by lightly tossing it around the bowl (don't squish, mash, or crush it). Then firmly press a handful of it together. If it sticks together easily and is slightly moist, you've added enough water. If it falls apart or feels dry, add more water and re-toss.

Gather the dough into two balls, wrap them in plastic, flatten them into thick discs and refrigerate for an hour.

Flour a sheet of wax paper and roll the dough out on it.

For bakers with a pastry scraper: after the first roll, scrape the dough off the paper, turn it 45 degrees, and roll again. Scrape it up again, turn it 45 degrees, and roll again. Continue to do this until the dough is too large to move easily. This trick unsticks the center of the dough from the wax paper.

When the dough is large enough to cover the pie plate plus one or two inches extra, roll the dough over your rolling pin and roll it onto the pie plate. You could also flip the crust (on its wax paper) over the pie plate, center it, and pull the wax paper off at a sharp angle so that it doesn't tear the dough. Tuck the dough into the plate, taking care not to stretch it.

Form an upstanding ridge if you're making a single-crust pie. Leave the edges rough if you're making a double-crust pie. After you've poured the filling into the bottom crust, add the top crust. Trim the edges of the dough so they extend about an inch and a half over the edge of the plate, then crimp an upstanding ridge. Cut vents in the top crust before baking according to the instructions in your pie recipe.

Hello Again

When I spend weeks away from the blog, I have a hard time getting it started again. If I was my own writing student, I'd tell me it's because I'm out of shape and out of (writing) practice. But in this case, that isn't quite the right advice. In the months since I let Good Egg go a little dark I've written so much that my right arm hurts every time I pick up a pen. Offline life (a.k.a. poems) kept me away. The more I didn't write you, the more I had to catch you up on; the more I had to catch you up on, the less time I had to tackle the task.

That's why today's metphor isn't going to be a well-run race. It's going to be a cannonball. Into something like this:

Some unconnected splashy thoughts:

When I started grad school last September, I was determined not to stop any of the writing practice I'd developed while working for Hugo House, this blog included. I then weathered a bout of malnutrition, a series of minor illnesses, recurrent arm pain and headaches, all thanks to my stubborn dedication to writing and the stresses of being a first-time teacher. By the time May rolled around, something had to give. I can't write poems, teach, be a student, a girlfriend, a sane human being, and a blogger all at once. I chose to let the blog go. When the end of summer break rolls around, I'll probably have to make that choice again. In the meantime I have a lot of pie to talk about.

I'm in business. Apple pie, peach pie, mumbleberry pie, gluten-free pie--you name it, I'll make it, freeze it, mark it with a B (or M, if your last name is Morrow) and sell it to you. Cream pies and savory pies available too. Consider this the start of the menu.

I'll make 4th of July pie, breakfast pie, barbecue pie, office party pie, I'm-not-sharing pie, and any old day of the week pie. PIE. Hit me up!

You can pay by cash, check, or paypal. I don't do delivery or the postal service yet, but I will meet you at a mutually convenient location if you live in or near Seattle. E-mail me at kate (dot) lebo (at) gmail (dot) com to place an order or ask a question.

I'm celebrating the start of summer break with a reading at the Fremont Abbey on Saturday. Ed Skoog is going to read too. We're opening for Ghosts I've Met and Jason's new band, Sons of Warren Oates. Doors at 7, show at 8 pm. Tickets are $7/$10. More info here.