Pie, Humble? I don't buy it.
The windowsill-cooled output
of a flour-dusted wife or grandma?
Those pies rely on real,
significant investment.
Pie is a Privileged Person pastime.
Countless fragile, shifting
elements of time, precision,
patience, practice and multi-tasking,
not to mention scores of utensils,
appliances and timers.
And curse words.
My own pie begins with feeding
my sourdough starter,
an orchestrated dance
of scales and bins of
triple milled, non-gluten grains
and accurately warmed —
but not hot — filtered water,
so that the chlorine from the tap
doesn't pull an Agent Orange
on my gentle yeast colonies.
Already, nine different objects
dirtied, consulted to keep them alive.
Next, I pour excess
bubbly starter into a bowl.
I weigh out silken tapioca
and fine brown rice
and xanthan and salt.
I begin to chunk away
at bricks of frozen butter
I rain down cow hail onto
the floury field in the metal bowl.
I press and squish and elongate
chilly pats into insulated streaks
of floured shingles.
And since I doubled the recipe,
I stretch and squeeze
and press and toss,
again
and again
and again
until my hands ache
and I imagine myself at eighty-eight
riddled with arthritis
and the knobby,
whitish-blue hands
of my great grandmother
—another baker of pies —
and wonder if I will look back
on this moment
as my hand affliction's origin story.
My spasming digits
press scraggly dry lumps
of purply teff-streaked flours
and daffodil explosions of butter
into four flat rounds
and ensconce each
in wax paper for
a chilly nap in the fridge.
My next journey is power-spraying
four-and-a-half pounds
of dark sweet cherries
from Washington state,
because tart cherries weren't in stock.
I put my faith in the location
of pointy objects
as I plunge my hand
into the inner depths
of a utensil drawer,
seeking, through touch alone,
the near-uni-tasker,
my cherry —"And olive!" —
(As I once defended
to an absent Alton Brown,
and to my present husband)
—pitter.
The World Cup 2026
Final match commences
as I drop the first slick pit
into my catching bowl.
Spain faces Argentina;
I face a riot of stone fruits.
I load, puncture, thwack, dump, reload
again
and again
and again
until the game's at the
thirty-four-minute mark.
The kitchen is a crime scene,
burgundy blood spray
marks the salt cellar,
the backsplash,
the rim of the bowl,
my hands damp and purpley.
I zest lemon,
I squeeze lemon,
I pour tinctures
of vanilla and almond
I toss with sugar,
some corn starch,
then leave it.
The mixture needs time,
more time, to rest,
for the cherries to
release their juices
like a secret
for the liquid memory
of summer to accumulate.
At minute sixty-seven
(Six-SEVEN!)
of the Championship game,
I put my focus into
draining off the red elixir
into a waiting saucier.
"Three to four minutes over low heat,"
the recipe lies.
At minute ninety-five,
the juices have reduced
to something like a loose gel.
Now it is time to prepare the crusts.
I press my strength
into the rolling pin
with the same hint of force
I'd give a massage
to a restless baby
who wasn't mine
and I was live on nanny cam.
I roll out the dough pucks
into oblong attempts at a circle
in the neighborhood of
ten to thirteen inches long
at any circumference point.
"Good enough," I grumble,
as the clock hits 102 minutes.
I prepare a traditional deep dish,
which I know will be more rustic,
too messy for my intended gift,
and then a chic
fluted French tart pan
for my second shell.
By the time I am doming
time-soaked cherries into crusts,
at minute 106,
Spain has scored,
the first goal of the game.
I level my eyes
to the rim of each baking vessel.
I decant into each
an adjudicated portion of ruby glaze.
And now the hard part: lattice.
With gluten-free crust.
Most would call this a fool's errand;
I would not disagree.
I remove the last two
fat-striped rounds from the fridge
and I put my remaining energy
into stretching, rolling, slicing strips.
As for the weave itself,
I should have consulted a manual.
Instead,
I free-stripped it,
laying a long,
saggy straight of dough
across the top of my deep dish,
watching in predictable dread
as the dough bottom dropped
into the wet mass of filling.
I then free-formed the plait
making the endeavor ninety times
more difficult than necessary,
patching as I went
with dough that rapidly dried
and returned to its separate flour
and butter components
under my frantic touch.
Like trying to score a goal
in the World Cup.
Standing back,
I assess the damage:
this pie will stay at home,
in the dark,
my private shame.
No amount of creamy egg wash
and demerara sugar glitter will be
sufficient lipstick for this pig.
I push the failed dessert
into the depths of my oven,
slam the door in ire,
set a timer for twenty minutes.
I growl: "See you in HELL."
[In my periphery,
my husband shifts on the couch,
invisible ice cubes
on his back.]
The pressure's on, now,
no more screw-ups allowed.
I lean into sanity,
and make my second lattice
on the pastry mat
then slide it onto my tart pan
as if easing fried egg from hot skillet.
"No effing way!"
I hoot victorious,
my revised approach prevailed.
I double fist pump the air,
threatening to pull a shoulder.
I am old, right.
I remind myself.
I return to the much-reviewed,
never absorbed recipe page.
"At twenty minutes..
"...turn the oven down to 350--"
"FUCK!!!!"
I scream,
my rage vivid,
palpable.
My husband jumps, visibly, in his seat.
"What,.... Babe?"
He ventures.
I register his hesitation;
he fears his safety.
"I messed up!" I wail.
"The pies are sequential,
"but the oven requires two temperatures.
"The second pie is FUCKED!"
I see him, through the back of his head,
calculating whether to
bring perspective to this situation,
whether to remind me
that foul language
makes him uncomfortable.
He wisely opts out.
"Can you just...
"...pre-heat the toaster oven?
"Bake off the second one there?"
His voice dies off.
Reasonable solutions?
And in a moment of no options.
How annoying.
"FINE!"
I bark, with thin gratitude.
After many hours on my feet
trying one new procedure after another,
I let myself sit down on the cream couch,
holding my stained hands away
from the cushions.
"Did you set a second timer?"
He asks, already knowing the answer.
"FUCK!"
The deep dish emerged
burnished and burnt.
D.O.A, fated to be
consumed in the dark
in the hovel of my home,
never to have proof of life
emerge in the public eye.
All bets are on the tart, now.
"DO NOT FAIL ME!"
I threaten the sky,
thrusting my crippled finger
at the countertop Breville.
After a period of stewing in silence
while pretending to watch
the post-game commentary
and then some new
Apple TV show called Lucky,
the last timer pings.
On under-oxygenated legs,
I walk to recover
my last chance at victory.
"THANK GOD!" I cry.
She is perfect.
She is photo-worthy.
She is dinner party-approved.
Final score?
Tart 1: Pie 0.
