Yeah, I know.  Lots of folks think that pie day is “Pi Day,” March 14^th (3.14).  It’s not.  National Pie Day is actually January 23^rd (as per the National Pie Council).

It’s good that kids are learning all about pi, the constant ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter.  But come on.  Unless we’re trying to figure out the area of an actual pie, it begs the question of why celebrate “pi day”?  OK, it’s another excuse for pie.

And, now that we’ve settled that the real pie “pie day” is coming up on the 23^rd, how will you celebrate National Pie Day?  Make a pie for your family with frozen cherries from last summer?  Buy an apple pie at the bakery?  Take a lemon meringue one to someone you love and enjoy it together?  Deliver a chocolate pie to someone who’s an under-appreciated person who’s making your community better or someone under the weather?  Maybe make a pecan one just for you because you love pie and you love yourself?

Warm yourself and someone else with a circle of love: a pie!

Back in pie mode

Do you ever go through phases when you don’t do something, even though you love it and want to do it and think it would be great to do it but you just don’t do it?  It’s been that way for me most of this year around something I love to do:  making pie.  I hadn’t really made one in months.  I just wasn’t in pie mode.

Why?  Can’t say for sure except that something in me said:  not now.  Wait.  

I think it’s OK to put things on the back burner sometimes, to let priorities shift around the multiple things for which we are responsible or to which we are connected.  For me, the main thing is to stay clear about the reasons things are shifting:  to be clear about the emotional and other factors operating.

Looking back, I can see that the primary force in my life this spring was the fact that I was preparing for retirement.  I’ve been working for 45 years.  Mostly I’ve worked for either myself or for social-profit organizations (formerly called non-profits) on behalf of health and social justice issues.  I’ve never made much money and haven’t saved enough for retirement.  

So, retirement feels like a huge stretch, one I’m not entirely ready for but one that I’m embracing.  It’s taken a lot of energy to finish up my most recent contract with the NM State Dept. of Health.  It’s taken energy to reconstruct my self-image, to start this next phase of life as an open book waiting to be written.

What does this mean for you?  You can expect more from me now:  more pie ideas, more tips and tricks, more fun.  And I’m going to start “teaching pie” one of these days.  Watch for that!  Maybe someone you know would love to come to the Land of Enchantment for pie camp.  Now that’s “pie mode!”

If you're in the Albuquerque area, here's your chance for a pie blowout.  It's a fundraiser for SAGE* and there will be all kinds of delicious pie for sale by the slice ~ or take your chance on willing a whole, homemade pie by participating in the pie walk!  Mmmm, will it be apple?  Pecan?  Chocolate?  Blueberry?  Lemon?  Mocha Cream? 

Best of all, you can donate a pie you made.  It's a good cause and every baker who brings a pie to donate will receive a "Pie Pals" refrigerator magnet to keep you inspired.  Please try to deliver your pie no later than 12:45.

When:  Sunday, March 12 (as close as we could get to actual "pi day," which is 3.14).  Location:  Pie Paloosa at the N'MPower Center, 136 Washington SE, Ste. E, Albuquerque, NM 87106.  Time:  Starts at 1:00 p.m.  Come early for the best selection!  Event ends at 3:00, and all pie must go!

*Pie Palooza benefits SAGE Albuquerque and their efforts to support LGBT elders. They provide training to senior service organizations on the unique challenges for older LGBT adults and they have ramped up efforts to create many more social opportunities for the older LGBT community.  They offer 4 different monthly gatherings and are creating more events of interest all the time.

“It Is What It Is”

Seems like it must have been good.  Here they are, Jon & Don, licking their pie plates.

A recent trip to visit Pie Pal friends, Kristin and Jon, took us to their cabin in southern Chile.  Their friends Don and JoAnne (from Montana) are building a home nearby.  With all of us being there together, the occasion called for pie.  Three pies, in fact, in 3 weeks:  blueberry, apple, blueberry, each one adapted to fit the circumstances and ingredients available. 

That’s one of the things I’ve learned over time:  the value of being flexible and adapting.  Being a rather fixed person (my partner might kindly call me strong-willed), it’s been a challenge for me to let go of my own expectations for how things should be.  This “how things should be” framework has two sides:  caring enough to do a really good job on whatever it is, like making a perfect pie for the state fair pie contest, and knowing when to be more in the moment with what is and what is possible and what is good enough.  Sometimes, as Kristin says, “It is what it is.”

How has this change in myself – this willingness to be more in the flow – come about?  Self-compassion.  This self-compassion is about a willingness to see life through kinder eyes, to see myself through kinder eyes: to love this simply human self.  It is about accepting whatever is going on in the moment, taking time to breathe and enjoy this life as it is.

That’s the thing:  It is what it is.  In the moment, we can’t change what is, we can only see it – see the situation, see ourselves, see others – honestly, with compassion, with love, and then go on from there. 

So, 3 pies in 3 weeks: baking in unfamiliar kitchens with stoves that measured heat in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit, making do with the tools on hand [Yikes!  No pie server!], and using the ingredients that were available there, tucked way back in the Andes.  One pie (blueberry #1) was made with my preferred thickening agent brought along with me from home; the apple pie was made with fresh, local green apples piled high (it was Fall there!); and finally, the pastry dough for the last one (blueberry #2) was rolled out in Santiago with a wine bottle (in the absence of a rolling pin).  It was a wonderful feeling to be open creatively and to have the experience of going with what was there.

Here’s to making pie with what’s available, putting love into it, sharing it with new & old friends, and expanding compassion for ourselves and others.  And thank you for reminding me, Kristin!

People – Pie Pals, specifically – have been asking, “What happened?!” 

Let’s get to the juicy details!

New challenges emerged this year.  There were 17 categories, up from the previous 16.  The Home Arts Division decided that they would eliminate “Dutch Apple” (it was rolled into the “Nontraditional Apple” category) and they added “No Sugar” and “Citrus.”  Hmmmph!  Here I thought I’d won all of the categories (which I had until they changed things) and could just bake for fun.

I worked and worked on creating a great sugar-free pie.  I’m not willing to use those weird artificial sweeteners that often have a bitter after taste, so I focused on more natural ways to make things sweet. First it was the “Nutty Buddy” Pie, based on frozen bananas whirled with unsweetened chocolate, frozen, and topped with chopped peanuts.  Analysis:  terrible texture (icy, frozen shards).  Then it was on to the “Sweet Potato Sweetie Pie,” which used apple juice boiled down to a thick syrup as the sweetener.  I was looking for a soft, custard-like texture and, instead, got what would gag a dog (if I had one).  As one of my favorite pie testers, Jon, said with such understatement, “This doesn’t measure up.”

Ha!  The final entry was an apple pie, double crust, sweetened with raisins and condensed apple cider.  It was quite lovely, thick with apples and raisins, and I really liked the flavor – probably because I’ve cut down on sugar so much in the last few years.  The judge, however, said she was a little confused by the flavor – maybe too much cinnamon?  And she didn’t get that the raisins had been soaked in rum. 

  So…it didn’t win a ribbon.  But you know what?  I enjoyed it for the next several days!

Meanwhile, they were judging the peach pie category which had an unusually large number of entries this year.  Guess who won?  A Pie Pal, Havens!    Here’s a picture of her gorgeous lattice-top peach pie, and you can find the recipe ("Stars & Moon Peach Pie) on www.piepals.com

Then they judged the nontraditional apple pies.  And guess who won again?  Pie Pal Havens!  I’ll ask her to post on the web site the recipe she used for her winning Dutch applie pie along with a picture.

Finally, they got around to judging the “Fruit Pie” category.  It catches everything that doesn’t fit in one of the other fruit groupings.  That’s where I entered my raspberry chocolate creation.  And I say creation because this is a recipe I made up 25 years ago.  That was the first blue ribbon pie I ever made! 

It’s a labor of love, for sure.  The crisp crust holds a thin layer of chocolate buttercream (like dark chocolate butter frosting), then there is a double layer of fresh raspberries covered by a lush, scarlet-red raspberry glaze.  Small chocolate cream swirls around the inside edge of the crust made it all come together. 

So the two judges tasted a sliver of the raspberry pie and also someone’s pineapple pie and all of the others in this category.  As usual, I watched to see if their expressions gave away their impressions.  They did not.  I tried to remember to breathe.  They lifted each of the slices to check the bottom and see if the crust was properly browned.  They pinched off bits of crust to check for flavor and flakiness.  They tasted the fillings each one more time. 

Finally it was time to announce the winners in this category.  One judge took the microphone and started, “Third place goes to…” while the other judge lifted my pie.  My heart sank.  “No, not that one!” the announcer corrected.  Whew.  They discussed and displayed the third place and second place winners.  And then judge #2 held up my pie while judge #1 pronounced it to be “perfection.”  Yay!  A blue ribbon in the “Fruit Pie” category!  I could breathe again.

Near the end of the pie contest, all of the blue ribbon pies (one from each of the 17 categories) compete against each other for “Best of Show.”  All 6 of the judges circle up and compare notes on their favorites among those 17 pies.  They go back and forth, a little more tasting, a lot of kibitzing, and finally one of them takes the mic again.  Guess what?  They agreed on the raspberry pie!! 

So, there you go.  Well, actually, there we went.  We, friends and I, took the remainder of that pie outside and ate it up.  We sat at a shady picnic table on a sunny September afternoon, forks, little plates and bottles of cold water at the ready.  We also ate up most of the peach pie and the Dutch apple and some of the sugar-free apple.  Does life get any better than moments like this? 

Special thanks to Havens, Jon, Patty and Carla for making the day even sweeter than the pie.

Cheers & love from Rebecca, your Pie Pal

P.S.  The recipe will be posted soon under Scarlet Raspberry Pie.

Sometimes we have high hopes:  We see things going our way, see ourselves being successful and having fun.  We hold thoughts of what could happen that would be really cool.  The hopes may be a little out there, really high, but we hope anyway!  Why not?

Check out this “pie in the sky” slice.  I had very high hopes for this pie.  People often ask me what my favorite pie is and, without hesitation, I always answer “fresh peach.”  Oh, those ripe, flavorful peaches, dripping with sweet juices, all wrapped in flaky pastry, baked into round deliciousness.

Serenading some peaches recently, I was attempting to seduce them into a perfect pie as I peeled and sliced them with love and anticipation.  They were ripe. They smelled good!  They had good texture.  Yay!  The crust came together easily.  I even made a lattice crust, which I think is perfect because it lets you see the juices bubbling and the pretty blush color of the peaches.  First peach pie of the season.  I could hardly wait.

Ever have times like that -- where you are happy with the doing, with the expected outcome, with yourself?  Fun in the present moment with an eye on what’s ahead.

Well, then, you also know how things turn out sometimes:  not at all like you expected.  As so it was with this.  It looked inviting, complete with tiny pockets of peach juice sweetened and thickened, peeking through the lattice as expected.  The underside was golden brown.  I let it cool, waiting for the moment when I could finally have some with a little cup of espresso.  It was awful. 

What happened?  This is “gakky,” my inner critic said.  Too much tapioca and sugar, I am sure.  But the main thing was that the peaches had so little flavor. That was the deal-breaker.  I nearly cried with disappointment as I put most of it down the garbage disposal, not even sharing it with trusted pie tasters nearby.

What’s up with fruit these days?  Am I the only one consistently frustrated by the lack of flavor in store-bought fruit?  It’s starting to get depressing.  And I’m not just talking about everyday big grocery stores.  The same tastelessness applies to fruit from most high-end grocery stores as well, with the exception of some produce from the co-op.  But that’s really expensive, even for those of us dedicated to spending more of our shopping dollars at locally owned stores that pay their employees living wages and that provide high quality food.

Well, I’ve renewed my commitment to shopping for fruit at the farmers’ markets in town, even though I am so NOT a morning person and you have to get there early for the best selections.  I’ll go for the peaches, raspberries, apricots and rhubarb.  I’ll go for the zucchini, too, and the greens and peppers.  Kale?  Not so much.  But whatever I get there, it’s got to be better than whatever was shipped 900 miles or more to get here.  If I only get to make one really good peach pie per year, using peaches from a nearby backyard or farm, then so it is.

I’m keeping my “pie in the sky” hopes.  I’m willing to try and have things not turn out the way I’d hoped, and then try again another time with a new version.  We all need hope! 

Keep baking, friends, and share your current version of good summer pie here http://www.piepals.com/my-account/submit-recipe .  Because we all need good pie, really good pie.

There are two kinds of Pie People.  Those who will eat any pie and those who are pie snobs.  I’m the latter.  Both types love pie.  How great is that?

Can you pass on a piece of pie?  It depends?  What about a piece of mass-produced pie?  You know – crust that can bend a fork and overly sweet canned fruit filling?  Maybe, maybe not.  Can you pass on a piece of really good pie – one with a flaky crust and flavorful fruit inside?  Less likely!

But that’s not the point.  There’s passing on a piece of pie, and there’s passing on pie:  the knowledge of how to make good pie and the recipes that go along.  That is passing on pie and is something I value.

Check out these photos that celebrate both of those 2 essential things: 1) teaching others to make pie, the craft of pie, the love that goes into making a delicious pie, and 2) passing on favorite pie recipes.

Look at this gem!  It’s a hand-scribbled recipe shared by a Pie Pal who’s now in her 60’s.  It’s a recipe she’s been making for friends every year for G.O.K. (God Only Knows) how long.  Thanks for sharing it, Chris!  (It was our pie of the month recently).  How many of us have family recipes like this, written out by hand and tucked somewhere in the kitchen?

And check this out:  another Pie Pal teaching her granddaughter how to make a pie.  How sweet is that? 

This is happening all over the country and it makes me very happy.  If you have a pie-teaching story or picture, share it!  The rest of us would love to see you in action, teaching a friend or family member your techniques.

Why does this matter – passing on pie?  Ours is a culture that’s all about fast:  fast food, fast information, fast work, racing through our days.  You know all this.  Even those of us who try to choose a more mellow pace are still swept along sometimes, finding life going too quickly, feeling pressure to keep performing and producing. 

Pie is about slow.  It’s about taking care, doing things by hand, like peeling apples or washing berries or separating eggs.  It’s hands-on, for sure!  It’s about being in the present and humming. 

Back to passing on pie.  If we, those of us who still make pie from scratch, don’t teach the next generation or two how we do it, what will become of our recipes and knowledge?  I’m pretty sure a YouTube video won’t compare to being shown by you how to roll a crust and crimp it.  I’m pretty sure a 30-second clip on Google won’t really help your grandchild understand what “cut in the shortening until it looks like cornmeal” means.  Who will teach children the importance of chilling the dough or using a pie crust shield to prevent the outer edge from burning while waiting for the juices to bubble at the center of a cherry pie?  And who will help the children in your life learn how to weave a lattice?

Please!  Be inspired by this recipe and make a folder full of your favorites to pass on to others in your family.  And, even better, share two or three of your favorite pie recipes here on Pie Pals.  It’s easy to enter your recipe and then you’ll be sharing it with the whole world! 

Please!  Be inspired by this photo and teach someone who’d like to learn how to make pie.  Spend a morning together and create a fabulous memory.  How the pie turns out is irrelevant, even for pie snobs, because it’s the making it that’s good. 

And for sure, someone will eat it. 

It’s kind of like looking for love in all the wrong places.

I was on a road trip with three friends recently and, just in time for lunch, we saw this sign on a roadside diner.  The whole roadside diner idea was appealing:  comfort food, big booths with padded vinyl seating, and a waitress with her name on the back of her belt refilling coffee cups.  Perfect!

The sign promised pie, so we checked out the refrigerated pie case immediately, before even being seated.  Featured there was a selection of fruit and cream options, including cherry, apple, lemon meringue and coconut cream.  The hostess reassured us that, yes, everything was made right there at the diner, just like homemade.  Oh, yum!  This was going to be fun!

The booths were full of local folks, so we settled down at a wooden table for four in the annex.  Sure enough, Betty brought lots of coffee and we ordered everything from country fried steak to enchiladas to a Chinese chicken salad.  Everything was pretty good, given that we were many miles from the nearest sources of fresh ingredients. 

Then the moment we’d been looking forward to:  sharing a piece of pie.  There was lots of talk and we finally agreed on the coconut cream, as it did look the most beautiful and all of us were in the mood for few bites of something sweet and blissful.  And if the pie was shared four ways, no great harm would come to anyone’s diet!

Shockingly awful.  I mention this not to disparage the café but just to be real with you about what commercially made pie is like these days.  Can you imagine pie so bad that four of us couldn’t finish one piece?  It’s true:  the crust was dense and tough, the filling was starchy to the point of gakky, and the topping seemed to be a cross between whipped cream and plastic.  Really!  We left most of it on the plate.

Do you find yourself looking for good pie and frequently being disappointed by what’s served?  Me, too.

So, my friends, I’m proposing that we once again commit to making pie and teaching others how to make pie and then enjoying it together.  Let’s keep good pie alive! 

And what do you think about making a list of places in the U.S. and Canada where it’s possible to buy a really good piece of pie, based on your experience and judgment?  I’d love to compile a list! 

Start thinking about where you go for good pie in your area and in the next newsletter (Sept.), we’ll set up a system for collecting your personal endorsements and posting them with pictures on a list here at Pie Pals so we can all find that good pie when we’re traveling.  Who knows?  Maybe we’ll take more road trips, just for the sake of finding a good piece of pie! 

Yours in the search,

It’s a Full Moon!  The “moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie!”, right?  For me at least, it’s time to go outside and howl, or at least wave at the moon and be grateful for all of the blessings in my life! 

For what am I grateful?  First, grateful to be alive at all.  Yesterday I got the “all clear” report on a recent CT scan, meaning no melanoma has metastasized and I’m healthy as a horse.  Yeah!!  There’s nothing quite like that news…a new lease on life, again, an opportunity to look forward with delight and a sense of expansiveness and grace.  And then, too, I’m grateful for all of the love and fun and abundance in my life.

I know I’m one of the lucky ones, the ones who get good news like that from an oncologist.  Please send love and healing energy out as you can, in whatever way works for you, to everyone you know who needs it and even to those you don’t know – that whatever they may be suffering from will be relieved according to their highest good.

Meanwhile, if you know someone who needs a pie, make it and take it!  We’re in this together and the more connection we can manifest, the better. 

As we enjoy Spring and this full moon, here are some suggestions for spring pies:  Royal Rhubarb, Mocha Latte or Banana Cream Pie.  (Recipes for rhubarb and latte pies are at www.piepals.com, recipes section!)

Here’s to gratitude and beautiful full moons,

Rebecca

More Good Pie!

That’s a motto to live by, isn’t it?  And we had GOOD PIE on PI DAY last week!

Several of us spent a whole evening at John and Bianca’s home, with laughter and pie coaching in abundance.  John honed his pie skills while Bianca made her very first pie ever!  Yay! 

John made a blueberry peach pie, after making homemade crust for the first time.  He's already known for making pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkins, and now he can claim success with making the flaky crust, as well!

Beth, an experienced baker, made her favorite:  custard pie.  She added a piece de resistance, freshly grated nutmeg, to the top of the pie just before baking.

Havens, also an experienced baker, made a sour cherry pie and brought it to share.   We had three to sample:  the cherry, blueberry peach and custard!  Check these out in the attached photo.

Bianca and John were coached by yours truly, someone who finds great joy in sharing the how-to of pie.  They were very good sports!  They learned the chemistry of crust: the “keep it cold” rule, how to cut in the shortening in two batches using a pastry blender, and how to judge the consistency of the dough and to add just enough water (which varies from one day to the next, depending on humidity and such). They managed to roll the dough and get it into the pie plate without excessive cursing, and created a crust edge to seal in the juices and look pretty. Now they can make great pie crust any time! 

Bianca made a beautiful first-ever pie, a traditional apple pie in an all-butter crust.  It came out late at night, so we didn’t get to try it, but I’m quite sure it was fabulous. 

Special thanks to Janet for being our taster extraordinaire! 

If you, too, want to have the confidence to make perfect crust every time, you can learn everything you need to know with “Pie Crust 101,” a DVD with all of the tips and tricks and a recipe, created by me with the help of my film friends, “Film Feed.”  You can find it in the Pie Pals Pie Shop, where you'll also find aprons either made by a microentrepreneur or printed in a union shop.  Made in the USA, of course!

Happy baking to all, and here’s to more good pie bakers! 

Rebecca

Pie Advocate

Shy at first, staff slowly gathered around the conference table with three round pies in the middle.  “You made these?”  they wondered.

“Yes, for you!”  I answered with a grin.  Their eyes got bigger.

The gift of pie:  made with love, with ingredients from my own mother’s garden (rhubarb, lemons), with the intention of honoring people who do the good work of strengthening our communities.  Often unsung, or at least not thanked directly, they are the people who staff the shelter for domestic violence or rape crisis center, who run the senior center, who work day in and day out for social justice, who do the inglorious work behind the scenes at a hundred non-profit agencies everywhere. 

January 23 was National Pie Day.  What a great holiday, huh?  What a great day to celebrate pie, and so we did.

The dozen women and two men who work the day shift at the shelter got to have their fill of three kinds of pie:  raspberry rhubarb, deep red beckoning through a lattice crust; apple, overflowing with fruit; and chocolate chess pie, a lush custard that was still a touch warm.  At the ACLU, the staff got to choose between lemon chess pie, that perfect blend of sweet and sour; and cherry, bright and engaging in both color and taste.  At the senior center, the lucky folks there got to enjoy slices of coconut custard, delicate and rich [the Grand Dame of pie]; and Dutch apple, a crumb topping the perfect foil for the soft, tart apples tucked inside.

Here’s a link to the story on the local pie-friendly TV station, KRQE.

And, here’s a special shout-out to two Pie Pals who did this generous work with me:  Sandy Bryan and Havens Levitt.  Both are regular contestants and winners at the NM State Fair Pie Contest.  Both are community-minded and have hearts the size of, well, a big ol’ pie.  Thank you, Havens and Sandy!

Wouldn’t it be fun to line up a whole bunch of pie bakers next year, each with pies ready to deliver to their favorite local heroes?  What if we did that in communities all over the world?

We’ve started a new tradition.  I can hardly wait for next year.

Rebecca Dakota

Pie Advocate

Pie Pal #1

There is something about a beautiful Christmas tree that evokes trust.  Regardless of one’s spiritual beliefs, there is something universal and primal about the response to such a tree.

The trust almost seems to come from the tree itself.  Trust from the past, reflecting our enduring dependency on trees for oxygen.  Trust in the present because a beautiful Christmas tree’s energy provides complete feng shui* balance and makes us feel good.  Trust in the future because their beauty reminds us to be calm, to remember our own inner light as it is reflected from the tree’s ornaments and lights.  The trees seem to remind us to seek the consciousness of love and compassion, reminding us to care for one another.

We respond with trust to something that feels so right.  The sight of a beautiful Christmas tree can transform us with a sense of connection:  to our own spirits, to each other and to the Earth.  How great is that?!

Wishing you peace and connection, and apple pie,**

Rebecca

*Christmas Tree Feng Shui:  The ancient Chinese system for seeking harmony and the gentle flow of the life force teaches us to look for the 5 elements and a balance between yin and yang in our environments.  The triangular shape of a holiday tree and the lights represent the element of fire, the tree itself represents the element wood, the scent of pine reminds us of earth, the round ornaments represent metal, and the shiny ornaments and tinsel represent water.  The dark tree is yin and the bright ornaments and lights are yang.  Perfect!

**Apple pie for the whole party – “Slab Apple Pie,” now in the Apple Pie section of PiePals.com.  It fills a whole 9x13” cake pan, so you can serve many people with one pie!  Special thanks to Pie Pal, Havens, for sharing her recipe.

Tipping Point Season?

It feels like a tipping point:  either we choose love now, being one humanity on the same globe, or we rip it all apart in fear and greed and a willing denial.

It is December 2012, and the world is in a pretty big mess:  Global warming, wars, hunger and need, tensions among people every which way.  And at the same time, people are envisioning change, intentionally creating a more global consciousness and connectedness. 

As people approach the holiday season – solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanza and other celebrations – it feels different this year.  Yes, there are tremendous social and economic pressures to buy things and to spend money (especially in our American culture), to be consumers above all else.  And yet, there is also a sense of calm and peace that seems to be emerging -- some kind of quiet, like a soft down comforter or a gentle tropical breeze enveloping the atmosphere around the globe.

People are taking time to see each other, to acknowledge that we are here together, that this is a sacred place and a special time on this planet. 

Whether we buy boots for a person living on the street, like the police officer in New York City did, or take homemade cookies to someone who lost a special person in their life this year, or adopt a family to share our blessings with, I hope all of us find a way to celebrate connection this year.  As we do, we will, indeed, bring peace on Earth.

Blessings of the season to all of us, Rebecca

P.S.  Homemade pie is one of the really good ways to bring people together!

We had peach abundance last week.  You, too?  Sweet, ripe ones all over the place.  What can you do?  Make jam?  Sure.  But pie...now that's pure joy.

I used the "I'd Give the Moon and Stars" peach pie recipe and changed the top crust, creating "pinwheels" out of dough, cinnamon and sugar.*  Loved the way they looked, kind of like Ferris Wheels, which really remind me of summer.  There was one in Porland, Oregon, I got to ride recently and it was spectacular:  we went around and around as the city lights came on and the sunset twinkled pink on the river.  I was giddy!

Try your hand at making this pie.  As always, it's not how it looks that  matters.  It's how it makes you feel.

Hope you're feeling peachy keen!  Your Pie Pal, Rebecca

*Just roll the dough out into more of a square.  Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and roll it up.  Slice into 1/2" rolls and flatten them with your fingers.  Place on the unbaked pie filling and sprinkle with sugar crystals.  Voila!  Pinwheels for yor pie.