Tag Archives: pie

Pi(e) day: 5 days to go!

Posted on March 9, 2009 | 2 Comments

Dining Out for Life is this Thursday, March 12, 2009. More than 200 restaurants will donate 25% of their food proceeds to A Loving Spoonful and Friends For Life. I’ll be at the Cascade Room. Where will you dine?

It’s pi(e) day on Saturday. It’ll be March 14, or 3/14 – which, if you squint and turn your head sideways, is 3.14. And, as all geeks know, 3.14 = pi.

You don’t have to be a geek to appreciate it, either. Any day you get to eat pie is a good day.

Gettng flaky pie crust is simple science. The key ingredients in pie dough: flour, water, and fat. The flour and water interacts to create gluten, providing the pie’s structure. The fat is incorporated to interrupt this structure. As a pie bakes in the oven, the fat melts and leaves a void where it used to be. The result: layers of pastry with air between them. When you bite into the crust, you perceive the pastry-air mixture as flakiness.

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Happy birthday, Elisa!

Posted on February 17, 2009 | 3 Comments

It’s Elisa’s birthday today, and I’m such a crappy friend that I didn’t have time to make her birthday pie.

That’s right, birthday pie. A few years ago, I stopped giving birthday gifts and started giving people birthday pie.

Think about it. Birthdays? Awesome. Pie? Fabulous. Birthday pie? OMG, that’s amazingly, spectacularly delicious.

Elisa, I’ll make it up to you on pi(e) day. That’s March 14, kids. Bonus points if you can tell me why that’s pi(e) day.

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Happy hallowe’ener!

Posted on October 31, 2008 | 3 Comments

In preparation for tonight, I’m sprucing up last weekend’s hallowe’en costume. I’m going as Spongebob Squarepants, and the focal point of the costume is the giant yellow car-washing sponges that I sewed together with fishing line. It’s raining in Vancouver (as usual) and I’m a bit concerned that I’ll soak up rainwater and topple over from the sheer weight of it. Hmmm.

I’m carving pumpkins later tonight and am excited for the pumpkin seeds. I dry them out for a day or so, and then bake them in a low oven (about 300F) with sea salt and pepper. Tasty.

As an aside, carving pumpkins are not pie pumpkins. Pie pumpkins are much smaller, and making pie out of pie pumpkins means you end up elbow-deep in pumpkin goo, boiling down a mess of orange mush for hours until you get one cup of acceptable pie base. Trust me: it’s really not worth it. Go out an buy a can of E.D. Smith pumpkin, which not only gives you a pretty decent pumpkin pie recipe, but contains enough pumpkin to make two (!) delicious pies.

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Turkey weekend: part two.

Posted on October 14, 2008 | Leave a comment

Well, thanksgiving dinner was a resounding success.  There was a hairy moment when the turkey fell apart while being transferred from roasting pan to cutting board, but it wasn’t anything that some strategically-placed garnish couldn’t handle.  There was a funny moment when we realized the one vegetarian was making the gravy, but since I’m pretty sure she eventually ate some turkey too, maybe it’s less funny.

The aformentioned turkey was lovely, flavourful and moist.  (I like to think it’s because it was locally sourced and free range, but it was probably also due to the mad skillz of our host.)  We had an abundance of sides, most of which were orange and/or mashed.  We had mashed potatoes, mashed acorn squash, corn, braised turnips, and cranberry sauce.  There was a token salad, to supply the requisite green on the plate.

We finished with two of my legendary pies: one pumpkin and one apple.  The pumpkin was the early favourite, but then people tried the apple and most liked that one better.  If I do say so myself, I really do think that my apple pie could induce world peace.

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Turkey weekend: part one.

Posted on October 12, 2008 | Leave a comment

I’m in Rossland, celebrating Thanksgiving with some old friends.  We’ve spent the past 48 hours overindulging in food and wine, and there will certainly be more extravagance before we hit the road tomorrow morning.

As I write this, there is an 18-pound turkey roasting away in the oven, stuffed full of herbs and deliciousness.  There are two pies cooling on the windowsill (one apple, one pumpkin), the potatoes and brussels sprouts have been prepped, and there are giant turnips waiting to be peeled and braised.

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