PIE COOKING CLASS STARTS WITH A PRO CRUST

Pie cooking is easy.

Preheat the oven, open the pie package, and put it in.

But what if you start from scratch and do everything by hand?

What’s that like?

Let’s go:

Nicoletta’s Table hosted a pie crust making class with Chef Gabby.

I’ve had instructions on how to many things, from field stripping an M16 in the Army, to delivering a baby, to raising boys to become good men.

Believe me when I say Chef Gabby was up to the standards of each training session.

You know you’re in competent hands when you walk in ten minutes late and the instructor brings you up to speed without missing a beat.

For further evidence of good hands, Chef Gabby used a recipe for making pie, just not the secret family recipe.

That’s when you know someone respects their trade.

 

Sixteen students showed up for class.

I was one of two guys out of the sixteen.

My wife and I like going on dates that include doing different things with our time together besides washing and folding clothes and cleaning the kitchen.

A class at Nicoletta’s Table was about as good a choice as any we’ve made, and Chef Gabby was an excellent instructor.

She was well organized and quick and had the uncanny ability to answer questions without losing track of time like I do.

Her precision and confidence filled the room with fun and the idea that we could all make pie cooking a part of our repertoire.

 

Pie Cooking For One And All

All the tools were set out, the ingredients prepped, and away we went.

When is the last time I worked flour and butter and salt and sugar and water into respectable pie dough?

For me it was yesterday. How about you?

The women in the class talked about making pies and how they’ve adapted the routine as time passes.

Now we’re all back to the basics, the fundamentals, and that means working with a scale and a clock.

Everything needs to be the proper weight before getting our hands in there and mixing, since we weren’t using a mixer; once we got the mixing done, the dough needed to rest at least half an hour before the rolling started.

Along the way we learned why some pie crusts sag, droop, or come out grainy. That’s the precision part.

We learned out to crimp the edges for a finished look, how far to fill the pie pan, and how long it takes for the filling to set up well enough to take home.

Why was I one of only two pie-guys?

At a recent art show I talked to a woman who said her husband wouldn’t be caught dead there.

It made me wonder how her husband would respond to an invitation to a pie cooking class.

What I didn’t wonder is if the same guy would balk at eating a piece of pumpkin pie or pecan pie like we made together at Nicoletta’s Table.

I think not.

 

Why Pie By Hand?

Why make pie and handmade crust when you can buy a graham cracker crust, dump in a can of premade pumpkin pie filler, and call it good?

I blame my mother in-law.

Her father was a baker, she was a baker’s daughter who rode with him on his delivery route.

She was born in England in a town called Strete where her dad was an important man.

She went to college and became a domestic science instructor, or as we call it her, a Home-Ed teacher.

Once she decided to make her signature dishes the kitchen turned into pro setup.

Everything was timed and temped to perfection, an old school chef updating the cuisine.

I got a similar feeling in pie cooking class at Nicoletta’s Table.

How would the pies turn out?