Success!

I am happy to report pie-making success.

Though a few expletives may have leapt from my tongue, I had a brief oven fire, and I had a few panic-filled moments spent convincing the pastry that its mission was not to stay glued to my countertop, overall I am proud of my achievement. The pie turned out to be a delicious flaky-crusted delicacy and worth all of the effort.

I thought it best to share with you a few lessons I learned last night:

1. Don’t forget steps when making pie. Especially the step that says ‘dot filling with butter.’ If you do, you will have to open a very hot oven, try not to get third degree burns, shove said butter in between your beautiful lattice work, drop a bit of butter on the floor of the oven, close the oven and then watch the oven catch on fire, curse loudly, pat out the fire (all the while trying to avoid the whole third degree burn thing again), close the oven up—just to remember you forgot the egg wash. Repeat all steps with egg wash.

2. Don’t fix a yummy and readily accessible meal while pie making. If you do, you will just stress eat after battling uncooperative raw pastry and your kitchen fire. This will blow your diet and make you too full to get hungry again for your pie.

3. Do enjoy your pie in the evening with ice cream and in the morning with coffee.

4. Do bake for someone you love. It makes all of the cursing, panic attacks, anger-filled slamming of oven doors, stress eating, and fire-fighting totally worth while.