oh the pie…

When it comes to sweets, I’ve got the tooth.  You know, the one that whispers in your ear (why else would it be situated all the way back by your molars?) at the pastry shop: “Go ahead, take another sample of the flourless hazelnut brownie.  No one’s really looking, and, after all, they wouldn’t bother setting out a plate of samples if they didn’t want you to eat them.”  But I’m not a candy girl; taffy and fudge and gummi worms are fine, but I crave butter with my sugar, some good old fashioned lipids shagging with all that sucrose.  Specifically, I love cookies.  Oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, sugar, ginger, Joe-Joe (not familiar with the Joe-Joe?  a topic for another post).  I like cookies that are hearty and a little bit soft and crisp at the edges.  I particularly like cookies that go well with milk.  And did I mention I prefer them warm, with a still-palpating, not-quite-solid, oozey, gooey heart?

But divorce yourself from these oven-hot fantasies; we’re not here to talk about cookies today.  Today we’re here to talk about something a little less snackable and a bit more indulgent.  Something meant to be eaten with a fork because it is at once too delicate and too robust for the sloppy work of our greedy phalanges.  Today we’re here to talk about pie.

I grew up in a universe of two and only two pies: chocolate and pecan.  My mom made hordes of both each year at Christmas and Thanksgiving. And, like most working moms of the 1980s, she bought frozen pie crusts at the grocery store. The chocolate filling came from a box of Jell-o instant pudding, all topped off, of course, with Cool Whip.  And it was all so good, an especially delightful treat when she made mini-pies, leaving my sister and I each with a small and beautiful scaled-down version of the original we so loved.  But, for reasons I can only speculate upon today, I never ate a proper berry pie until very recently.  By recently I mean the past two or three years.  I know, I know.  Go ahead, cringe, gasp, pity my sheltered and empty life.  I’ll give you a moment.

The truth is, I was a very finicky eater for the first two decades of my life–I ate my first salad when I was eighteen.  And so, while berry pies were probably around–or perhaps it was cobbler, I am from the South–I suspect I just conveniently overlooked them.  But somehow, perhaps against all odds, I grew into the berry-loving semi-vegetarian I am today.  My eyes have been opened to a wide world beyond Pilsbury boxed and frozen crusts.  I now know, with equal parts conviction and delight, that a beautiful universe was awaiting me beyond the chocolate pie.

This glimpse into my gastronomic history has brought us here: The Pie.  (notice definite article)

Oh, the pie!  The summer blackberry pie.  The truest testament to this confection is that the same restaurant also bakes the best cookie my wonky jaw has had the pleasure of masticating.  But, days later, it’s the pie that I still reflect upon with great fondness and a sense of both deep content and intense longing.

Under the following conditions, I would argue with some certainty that you, too, could experience the Platonic Ideal of the berry pie:

Spend the morning under a gray August sky in a 5mm wetsuit with a surfboard in hand.  Get cold.  Let the waves toss you around.  Fight with yourself, your board, the undertow, the raging Pacific, all in an attempt to get far enough beyond the breakers to pretend you think you might catch a wave.  Nose your eight foot board into the sandy floor and let the surf roll over you, tossing you like last week’s dirty socks at the laundromat.  Let a trusted friend surf into you, leaving you both bruised and weary of your anonymous silhouette companions.  Back on land, will the blood back into your purple-gray fingers.  Attempt to remove your wetsuit with hands whose numbness has rendered them blunt flesh-colored flippers.  Take a deep breath.  Peel the last of the neoprene over your ankles.  Wrap up in yesterday’s still wet towel and drive twenty minutes to Sobo.

You’ll find there are several pies in the case, but this one, the blackberry (warmed, of course, with homemade vanilla bean ice cream) is, frankly, magical.