Jamie Makes Apple Pie

One day, years ago, my grandma Ambur decided to pass down her famous apple pie recipe to me. This could not be done by handing me a recipe, but had to be hands on. So my grandma devised a sort of day-long pie-making boot camp for me in her kitchen in Presho, South Dakota. 

I don't know how many apples were peeled and sliced that day (although these days, says Grandma, some women just don't even peel their apples anymore, they put them right in the pie with the skins on! And you know, it doesn't even taste bad, and it sure does save a lot of work, but I still like to peel mine). I don't know how many pie crusts were rolled out and pinched together. I don't know how many tears were shed after grandma beat me on the head with a rolling pin after I accidentally got a piece of shell in with the egg. Just kidding, it didn't quite get that intense. I just know, that at the end of the day, with numerous pies cooling on the window sills, I had had grandma's secrets and techniques forever branded into my brain, so that I would be able to spread the goodness of "Grandma's Apple Pie" to the far-reaching corners of this earth. 

First, I baked it for my host family in Germany, and it held its own, even among the variety of delicious cakes that my host mom baked. I made it in Peru when the other volunteer teacher and I threw a Thanksgiving feast for our classes. And now, I've made it in Georgia. 

At this point, I must confess, it was kind of a fail. 

I'll begin from the beginning. A couple weeks ago my host mom asked me, out of the blue, "Why haven't you cooked for us yet?" 

["Well, because you will barely let me pour my own water without jumping up to do it for me, so I didn't think your strong notions of hospitality would allow such a thing."]

That's what I thought. What I said was "Uhh, ar vitsi." (I dunno.)

So she asked what I was going to make for them, and, because of their endless supply of apples, I thought apple pie would be a good idea. 

Then I caught a cold, and for 3 days I was not feeling like doing much of anything except laying in bed and playing Angry Birds. My illness did not stop my mother from asking "Why haven't you made your cake yet?" (Pie is not really a thing here).

["Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but there's been a pretty consistent stream of snot coming out of my nose lately, and I don't think that's one of the ingredients that really elevates a pie from good to outstanding."]

That's what I thought. What I said was "I'm sick! Give me a break!" But I said it in English, so she just nodded at my exasperated tone and let the subject go.

Yesterday, I was feeling much better, so in anticipation of her inevitable questioning of when I was going to make the pie, I suggested at lunch that I make it that day. 

After lunch, she went off to feed cows, or pour cement in the yard, or whatever it is they do when they're not in the house. Then, in late afternoon I got called to the porch for coffee. "Why haven't you made your cake yet?" said my host mom. 

This time, I said exactly what I was thinking, "Because you were off doing something else, and I need help, because I obviously don't know where you keep all your pans and ingredients and everything and your oven's probably in Russian, so you need to tell me when you want to help me make it." To which she responded "eeeeeh...okay."

Then I went upstairs grabbed my pie recipe with the translations I'd gotten out of the dictionary, came back down and handed it to her. She said they'd have to go to the store for the lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg (which she'd never heard of before, so it didn't sound too promising), but that they had everything else. 

So, by 8:00 pm my host brother had gone to the store and I had my ingredients. Or so I thought. 

My first problem was a pie pan. There wasn't one. The closest thing was about twice the size of a normal pie, shallower, and with straight edges. Good enough, I'll just double the recipe. 

So I started to make the crust. I had tried to look up 'shortening' in the dictionary, but it wasn't there, so I looked up 'lard' and thought she would get the idea. When I pointed to it on my paper, she said, "You don't need that, use this." and handed me a stick of butter instead. Ok, I'll give it a try. Unfortunately, the area designated for me to roll out the dough was significantly smaller than the pan itself, so my crust had to sort of be pressed together in the pan, with an end result resembling Frankenstein's face. 

Then comes the filling. My host aunt asked me if I needed a cheese grater to grate the apples, and I said that no, they just needed to be sliced. This was met with some skepticism, which was basically the theme of their reactions as they watched me throughout the cooking process. (If I could cook well, I'd be married already, right? I mean, geez, I'm already 23, and still single with no kids?)

Brown sugar apparently doesn't exist in Georgia, so I just used white. No big deal. Then I asked for the cinnamon. "You don't need it," said my host mother, "They didn't have it at the store, or the nutmeg either."

Oh....

Also, the lemon juice was in powder form, as was the vanilla. The aroma of this powdered vanilla in particular had an uncanny ability to stick to my skin even after numerous hand washings. Which definitely made me second guess using the whole packet. 

I would like to note here that I didn't have any sort of measuring tools besides a coffee cup and a spoon. 

So lets review, pie crust with butter subbed for shortening, and apple filling with no brown sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, weird tasting vanilla powder, and powdered lemon juice. Things aren't looking good.

Then comes the baking. Their oven did not have a temperature, it simply had an on/off switch. So I put it in and crossed my fingers. About 45 minutes later it looked done, but then it was time for an English lesson with my host siblings, and by the time I was done with that it was past 10:00 p.m. Too late for pie even by Georgian standards apparently. 

But just as I suspected, it was served for breakfast this morning. Because it's never too early for pie in Georgia. Or anything for that matter. My host mom tried to get me to eat candy bars and cookies for breakfast yesterday, which, much to her bafflement, I declined. 

Let me just say that the pie was not great. The crust was a bit soggy, the filling was overpowered with the taste of artificial vanilla, and it's just not the same without the cinnamon and nutmeg. I don't think my host family hated it. It's not like it was disgusting, and they told me it was delicious of course, but they didn't seem overly enthusiastic about it. 

The bad thing is now I really want a delicious, real, homemade apple pie. 

The good thing is they probably won't bug me to cook for them again. 

And Grandma, if you're sitting at the Presho Public Library reading this, I'm sorry I've failed you.