December 13, 2024 • 54 mins
We welcome Anne Carpenter, a seasoned baker and author of the book You Had Me at Pie. Anne shares insights into different types of pies, including fruit, custard, and transparent pies, along with expert tips on making the perfect pie crust, choosing the right ingredients, and essential baking tools. The conversation also delves into the rise of cooking at home post-Covid, pie classes at Kitchen Conservatory, and the merits of homemade vs. store-bought pies. The episode concludes with a look ahead at Anne's upcoming book on soups.
[00:00] Introduction and Warm-Up
[01:31] The Importance of Balance
[03:48] The Art of Pie Making
[04:10] Pie Preferences and Variations
[11:05] Pie Crust Mastery
[25:13] Fruit Pies and Thickeners
[27:15] Gelatin in Pies: When and Why
[27:43] Essential Pie-Making Tools
[29:54] Flour and Favorite Pies
[30:27] Cherry Pie Tips and Tricks
[31:38] Frozen Fruit for Pies
[32:19] Pie Classes and Pie Day
[33:05] Mincemeat and Raisin Pies
[35:53] Pot Pies and Savory Pies
[37:13] Meringue Pies: Challenges and Tips
[39:04] Cobbler: A Simple Alternative
[41:48] Pie Baking Tips and Tricks
[45:31] Upcoming Projects and Soup Book
[50:40] Closing Thoughts and Farewell
This is Season 7! For more episodes, go to stlintune.com
#piemaking #piecrust #baking #cherrypie #reedypress #bakingpies #potpies #fruitpies #piebaking
Links referenced in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
What do you like to eat forbreakfast? Our guest thinks that
the only thing better than awarm pie is leftover pie for breakfast
on St. Louis in June. Welcometo St. Louis in Tune and thank you
(00:25):
for joining us for freshperspectives on issues and events
with experts, communityleaders and everyday people who make
a difference in shaping oursociety and world. I'm Arnold Stricker
along with co host MarkLangston. Mark. It's been a while,
sir.
It has. The holidays snuck upon us. At least the Thanksgiving
holidays. I have tucked mybelly in and I am back.
(00:47):
You let a belt link out or something?
A couple of them, I'm afraid.I know. It gets worse every year.
I don't.
Every year the pants they get,they shrink.
And that pecan pie. Oh, my.
Oh, yeah, pies. We're gonnatalk about pies.
Yeah, it's all. Pecan pie. Isall. It's sugar. I think it's just
sugar.
(01:08):
It's got pecans in it.
Oh, does it? Okay.
We haven't been together forso long. I did not get my Return
to Civility book out.
Oh, it's time to return. It'sbeen a challenging month that I've
been.
It has been. It has been. AndI can give us some civility that's
(01:29):
not humorous, something that'sactually serious. Because sometimes
with the way life goes,sometimes I think the last show we
did was just, what, rightafter the election and some people
were losing their minds andsome people were having fun, their
candidate won and everythinglike that. But you have to understand
(01:49):
that life needs to be inbalance. And it's important that
we keep things in balance,that we don't go off track and we
don't decide to rely onindividuals for our happiness or
to rely on things that arehappening in the world to determine
(02:12):
what we should do. Live life.You can't worry about what's going
to be happening tomorrow. AndI know you need to save for the rainy
day, but at the same time, youneed to not let life stop. And some
people do that. They just putthings on hold and very beneficial.
I actually can't find a goodone. All these things are funny.
Maybe at this point we coulduse funny. But. Yes. You said a word
(02:35):
that I think is great isbalance. There's so much balance
for me is like that magicalword. We need balance. Everybody
needs balance all the time on everything.
Yeah.
And I don't want it to be allRepublican all the time and I don't
want it to be all Democrat allthe time. We need a Balance in there.
And I want it to be focused onthe people.
(02:57):
Wouldn't that be a novel idea?
You're talking about balance.We used to talk about this at work
is people, they don't likechange. And change is disequilibrium.
And when your disequilibriumis equilibrium, you can really ebb
and flow with whatever comesyour way. But that's a difficult
(03:18):
place to get to when you canmove ebb and flow with things and
when you're bouncing back andforth and that becomes the norm when
change is the norm. Change ishappening all the time. We're growing
older. I know you aren't,Mark, but.
Oh, yes, I am. Talk to my knees.
Yeah, but you know what I'm talking.
Totally, absolutely.
So that's our return tocivility balancing.
(03:39):
Very heavy. We're opening theshow very heavy, aren't we?
But we're going to go delvinginto an area that's juicy and it's
got my chops licking here. Theart of pie making. Ann Carpenter,
author and baker, is in studiotalking about her book, you Had Me
at Pie, anne. Welcome to St.Louis in Tune.
Thank you very much, Arnold,for having me.
What's the title?
(03:59):
You Had Me at Pie.
You Had Me at Pie. Explainthat for us.
I'm with her.
Do you ever turn down pie?
I usually don't.
Yeah. Pie will bring balancein your life.
Yes.
Pie will make you happy.
It will.
Pie will make you happy. Andyou choose pie over cake?
Always. Always. You choose awet dessert over a dry dessert.
(04:21):
I get that.
Cake is dry, cake is stale,pie is flaky. Pastry crust, gooey
center.
There's one place I will buycake in the city of St. Louis.
Okay, let's hear it.
Cakery Bakery. Shameful plugfor Cakery Bakery. Great, great cake.
Never heard of it.
Even cupcakes, they have aplace called the cup right behind
(04:44):
the chase.
Yeah, I have pie for breakfast even.
By the way, pie for breakfastis totally delicious. Because after
all, it's fruit.
I do.
It's crust. Why is that not aperfect breakfast? People often ask
me, what about? How do I makethis healthy? And my answer is, your
mental health just asimportant as your physical health.
(05:06):
Oh, there you go. So I havethat extra piece of.
Does eating delicious foodmake you happy?
Oh, yeah.
So therefore, delicious foodis health food.
Where did you. When did youstart all this?
Oh, I've been baking piessince I was a child. I always loved
to mess around in the kitchen.And it took me a while to figure
Out. This was going to be mylife's work, but there was never
(05:27):
a time I wasn't baking.
You teach it's been, what, 30plus years at Kitchen conservatory.
Yes.
And the new digs are reallynice out there on Manchester Road.
On January 1st of this year,we moved to Manchester Road to a
new building and we increasedfrom two kitchens to three teaching
kitchens.
Wow, that's great.
(05:47):
Is that right by the schnooks?
Across the street, the oldbowling alley? Where? The old bowling
alley.
I've driven by it and I've.
Next door to Carl's. Drive in.That's the spot everybody knows.
Absolutely.
Some good smash burgers.
Oh, yeah. And IBC root beer.Great place. I'll be talking. I see
them doing classes and things there.
Yeah, we do classes and thingsevery day. We do 30 cooking classes
(06:12):
a week.
Holy smokes.
On 30 different topics.
Oh, yeah. And you can get abrochure which.
Add a little more.
My wife and I, we were goingto a Valentine's Day kind of cooking
together and great place tobuy the equipment. You have to have
equipment.
6,000 essential cooking tools.
That's right. There's goodstuff there.
(06:33):
Is that right?
Absolutely. Go there for good stuff.
We're gonna have to go there.
That's what the kids get usfor Christmas. Kitchen utensil stuff.
Okay.
Kitchen supply kinds of things.
This is pretty neat. So it'sjust west of Brentwood Boulevard.
West of Brentwood. Right.
On the north side on Manchester.
Yeah.
Okay, I'm coming by.
So you've been doing this andI think there's a thousand kinds
(06:59):
of different pies because youhave fruit pies, you have non. What
you called it something that Iwasn't up from. Transparent pies.
So transparent pie, a custardpie is eggs and cream. So when you
set a pie with eggs butthere's no cream, that's a transparent
pie.
And those are veryinteresting. Those are very interesting.
(07:19):
That's what a pecan pie is. Atransparent pie.
Okay. With pecans, Mark.
My favorite. Just my favorite.That's all I can tell you.
Would you like it, Mark, if wejust did the syrup and sugar and
eggs and dispensed with the pecans?
That's a chess pie then.
Well, a chess pie usually hassome. It usually has some. What do
(07:40):
you call it, some littlecornmeal in it to give it a little
grit and a little texture onit. And the pecan pie doesn't have
any of that flour in it. Butactually if you take the pecans out
and you add some may, you'vemade a maple syrup pie.
Oh, stop.
And the Canadians love that, eh?
What?
You put that on your pancake.
(08:01):
It's got crust on it. So it'salready on the pancake.
Okay, so I have this questionas you were talking about that.
I'm gonna ask that.
I really love key lime piealso. Key lime pie is what kind of
pie?
Oh, my.
Is that a just. Cause it'slike a combo.
No, key lime's a custard piebecause there's cream and eggs.
Okay.
So if you think of lemonmeringue, that's a meringue pie.
Cause you got a meringue ontop. I actually think key lime is
(08:23):
really good with a meringue ontop. Like a lemon meringue.
Yeah, it is. And key lime. Ihad good key lime pie down in New
Orleans or Nolens, and it wasalmost gray. It was like a little
grayish green.
So you mean they didn't putthe food coloring in, so it was real
limes that they used?
Yes.
Wow.
It was really good.
Now in Florida, they do somekind of key lime piece where they
(08:45):
use a salted pretzel crust.Where's the name for that? It's,
I don't know, beach pie orsomething like that, as they call
it. Yeah.
Ooh.
Oh, you should have broughtsamples with you. I'm just saying
so you could have them forbreakfast. I know. She should have
brought samples. I don't know what.
I think that's cruel to thelisteners to hear you enjoying food
that they can.
(09:05):
Oh, I don't think so. I thinkit's absolutely fine just slobbering.
All over their radios right now.
In cooking class, a lot oftimes people will call and say, do
we get to eat the food? And Isay, it would be awfully cruel if
you make all this food andthen say, no, no food for you.
We're giving this away. Or theteacher just eats it in front of
(09:26):
the students.
Oh, my.
All right, I've got so manygazillion questions here. Do you
put. Okay, so this one's justpopping right out because I have
to get the answer to this. Doyou put ice cream or whipped cream
on top of any of your piesthat you eat?
Absolutely. Maybe sometimesboth. But some pies just demand to
(09:47):
have a topping on it. Now, youdon't need a topping on meringue
pie because that's selfcontained with its meringue topping.
But I think an apple pie withice cream and a pumpkin pie with
Whipped cream. Is anything better?
Yeah. Yeah.
Probably not. Yeah.
Have you ever usedhuckleberries in a pie?
I have, but they're hard to find.
(10:08):
They're hard to find. I hadhuckleberry pie a long time ago,
and it was. Maybe it was howit was made. It was. It didn't taste
very good.
It did not. It didn't haveenough sugar in it. Because huckleberries
are tart. They're very tart.And do you know what defines it?
Huckleberry is wild. Sothey're not cultivated. That's why
in the Tom the Mark Twainnovel, the hero is Huckleberry Finn,
(10:33):
because he's untamed.
So there we go.
I love. You know what? Ilearned something new on the show
every time I tune in. Thatmakes so much sense when you say
that. Who knew?
Now you have to reread thenovel to see.
I'm gonna have to. And I willkeep that in the.
Yes, the Untamed.
(10:54):
Like you. It's a lot like you,Arnold. Untamed.
My name Arnold Huckle.Huckleberry Stricker.
Yeah. Untamed.
Arnold. Okay, okay. All right.Let's start at the basic thing which
people struggle with is thecrust. Ann.
Yes. It's foundational to the pie.
What mistakes do people make?And now what should they do other
(11:17):
than buy your book? Becauseyou have a great recipe in there
on crust? Because crust isreally what to me, besides the goo?
I call it the goo, but itreally distinguishes.
Using the technical termthere, I was.
Saying it distinguishes, youknow, a store bought Mrs. Smith's
from one man. You got a flakycrust on top that apple pie. It's
(11:37):
just incredible.
Have you ever eaten a pie,been served a pie, and you end up
eating filling and you leavethe crust on the plate because the
crust isn't very good?
Yes.
We can't have that. So in mybook, I do step by step photographs
of exactly what you should doat each step of the way. And because
I think this is where peopleget frustrated. They think it's too
(12:00):
difficult. They really panicabout the crust. But we can solve
this problem if you have apiece of French tart. It is a all
butter crust and the crustsupports the filling. So imagine
you can eat that tart out ofyour hand. You can pick it up because
the crust is sturdy enough tosupport the filling. That's not what
(12:21):
pie is. Pie is flaky, but it'salso tender. And so you want to get
that balance of flaky andtender. So that pie is messy. Because
a messy pie is a bettertasting pie. Here's how. My trick
is that it's 50% butter forflavor and 50% shortening for texture.
(12:42):
Because butter will never makea tender crust. It'll make a flaky
crust, but not a tender crust.And the shortening makes a super
tender crust. Now, if youthink of grandma's pie, which was
probably an all lard crustthat was super tender, but it didn't
have the butter taste.
(13:03):
And it's always better with butter.
That's our motto at kitchenConservatory. Have you ever found
anything that wasn't improvedby butter?
No. If it doesn't taste good,just put a tablespoon of butter in
or a stick.
I'm all about the stick of butter.
Some require that. Somerecipes require a whole stick of
(13:25):
butter, which is real butter.
Let's talk about butter.
Well, what we're making hereis we're not making salad, we're
making dessert. So we need thedessert to be worth the calories.
Now, some people will say, canI substitute margarine? Tell them
why they can't do that, Ann.
It doesn't have the flavor.
There it is right there. Idon't even know why they make margarine.
But okay.
(13:48):
To clog people's arteries.
Must be. Doctors are doing it.
So we get the crust. Now whatabout pans? There's different sizes.
What should an average piesize pie.
Plates can run from 8 inch, 9inch, 10 inch. And really you can
use the same crust, recipe andthe same filling between an 8, 9
(14:10):
and 10. And in the 8, your pieis going to be a little taller. In
the 10, it's going to be alittle bit wider, but it'll work
in any size pan. Use the pansyou have and your.
Recipe covers all of those sizes.
Yeah, you can, you may have toroll out the crust a little thinner
for a 10 inch and it'll be alittle thicker on an 8 inch, but
it's in the end it's going tobe delicious.
(14:30):
Okay, now let's. You're reallygetting, we're getting down into
brass tacks on crust here. Howthick? And I know it's going to determine
the size of your pan, but howthick should generally the crust
be?
So the thickness of the crusthas nothing to do with the flakiness
and tenderness of the crust.The way my recipe works, it's a 2
(14:50):
cup measure. So for a doublecrust. So 1 cup of flour per crust.
So that means it's the sameamount of dough for the bottom crust.
As it is for the top crust.But the bottom crust is going to
be a little thinner becauseyou have to go up the sides of the
pie plate and the top crust isgoing to be a little thicker because
the diameter of the top is notas big as the diameter of the bottom.
(15:11):
But it's all good.
And then you do your littlepinchies at the side and things like
that.
Crimping the crust for afluted pie crust edge.
Man, I'm glad she's here.
Crimping.
That's right.
Me pinching.
Yeah, you're pinching. Yeah,you're all wrong. You need to take
the class, get the terminologycorrect. That's right.
So lattice crust, top lattice.No. You don't like that.
(15:35):
I'm not a big fan either.
You need a really sturdy,tough dough to do the lattice weave.
And that's not a dough youwant to eat.
Okay.
Yes.
It's going to be tough.
Yeah. It's not going to betender. So with my pie crust recipe,
you cannot make a latticebecause you can't do the weaver.
(15:57):
Okay.
I think it takes away from thecooking of the pie, too. Could be
just me, but it just seemslike it does.
I think they devised latticecrust for the food stylist devised
it because then you see theberries busting out of the pie and
it looks cute. But I'm all inabout the taste.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Not the looks. We want totaste it. What's it gonna look like
in your belly? We don't careabout the looks.
(16:18):
What are you doing there?
I don't know. I'm over here.
This is Arnold Stricker withMark Langston. We're talking to Ann
Carpenter about her book, youhad me at Pie, and it's available
at Reedy Press. And it's. I'mgoing to just run through a little
of the contents here. A doublecrusted fruit pies, custard pies,
meringue pies, transparentpies, chocolate pies, not pie. We're
(16:39):
going to get to that one. Butshe also has tips for the perfect
pie dough to blind bake pie.Graham cracker pie crust. Graham
cracker pie crust is reallywhat's challenging about that.
My graham cracker pie crust isnot the graham cracker pie crust
you're thinking about.
Okay.
So what I do. Because you seethe problem with usually a graham
cracker crust, which on a keylime pie is just graham cracker crumbs
(17:02):
and melted butter. Meh. What'sthe. There's no pastry there. I'm
a Pastry girl. I want pastry.Flaky, tender pastry. So what I do
is I take my perfect piedough, and instead of rolling it
out in flour, I roll it out ingraham cracker crumbs. So I get the
nuttiness of the grahamcrackers, but still the flakiness
of pastry. It's very good witha pumpkin pie.
(17:26):
Ooh. And you said something inthe book about pumpkin pie that was.
Should we say that?
Yes. Let's hear it.
So what is pumpkin?
Yeah, go ahead.
It's a. What is it a vegetable?
It's a gourd.
It's a gourd.
It's a squash.
Yeah.
And so if you. The Libby. Thecans of Libby pumpkin all come from
(17:48):
Morton, Illinois. All of thepumpkin for Libby is grown in the
fields around Morton,Illinois. About three hours north
of here. The cannery is in thefield. They have hybridized a kind
of butternut squash that's alittle bit more orangey in color
and huge. So they get moresquash per plant, and they put them
(18:08):
right into. And they pack themright into the can as soon as they.
They harvest them. So whatyou're eating in the can is actually
butternut squash. So I alwayssay a fresh butternut squash is better
than a canned pumpkin.
Okay. And she even goes intohow you take care of that butternut
squash to get it going, get itright. All the cooking and everything.
(18:34):
It's the best pumpkin pieyou've ever eaten. And, of course,
what I tell my students is,don't tell your friends and family
that they're eating squashpie, because that just doesn't have
the. The cachet. Tell themit's pumpkin pie, and they'll say,
wow, is this pumpkin pie? Somuch better.
I'm telling somebody it'spumpkin pie and it's sweet potato
pie. Have you ever made asweet potato pie?
Sweet potatoes tastedifferent. That's a. What is it?
(18:56):
It's a different kind ofplant. But sweet potatoes have no
connection to squash, and theyhave a very different flavor.
Interesting.
Wow.
This is why we are having Annon the show today.
I am thankful for it.
Yes. Because she goes, apples.And. And this is another thing about
apple pie. You have to get theright kind of apples.
I'm with you there. I'mfinicky when it comes to apple pie.
(19:18):
So an apple for eating is notan apple for cooking, right?
Ooh.
Yes. So the apples you enjoyeating usually are not designed for
long cooking, and you want atart apple for cooking, and you don't
want. Have you noticed thatthe apples in the store now are the
(19:39):
size of grapefruits. They'reenormous. And all that means is that
there's less fruit flavor andmore water in them. So that's just
going to be a watery pie.Those big jumbo apples. I also don't
understand. With the applesthey've developed, you go into the
grocery store, they all haveporn star names. Envy, Jazz, honeycrisp.
(20:01):
What is this? These are notreal apples.
Corn apples. That's it.
I love it. It's true. She'sright in the world.
I know those are apples we'renot baking pie with.
I hope not. The other thingabout, gosh, just going into the
store and seeing the quality,I should say the lack of quality
(20:22):
of produce is justunbelievable. So when you purchase
things for your pies, do yougo to a farmer's market? Do you go
just to the regular grocerystore? And like, when you're looking
for apples, are you lookingfor smaller apples? Are you looking
for those that are ripe orsemi ripe or not so ripe because
of the tartness? What are youlooking for?
(20:43):
The apples that I really likefor pie are. Jonathan and Macintosh
are very good, but they're alittle harder to find. And then it
really goes down from there.Now, some of the farmers markets
in August and September willhave some good apples. Size is usually
a big indicator. Go forsmaller apples because that means
(21:04):
a less. Less water content,and that's going to give you a better
pie.
Okay. Picked right off thetree or let them sit for a while
or.
Apples usually will store verywell, but they need to be stored
in refrigeration to storewell. But we want to. The apples
are usually harvested August,September, and then if we want to
eat them in December, you haveto store them.
(21:24):
Okay.
Ay, ay, ay.
I've got a whole lot more questions.
Do you?
We're going to take a littlebreak here. We're talking to Ann
Carpenter. She is the authorof youf Had Me at Pie. This is Arnold
Stricker with Mark Langston.We'll be right back. This is Arnold
(21:46):
Stricker of St. Louis in tuneon behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage
Foundation. In 1857, the DredScott decision was a major legal
event and catalyst thatcontributed to the Civil War. The
decision declared that DredScott could not be free because he
was not a citizen. The 14thAmendment, also called the Dred Scott
Amendment, granted citizenshipto all born or naturalized here in
(22:06):
our country and was intendedto overturn the US Supreme Court
decision on July 9, 1868. TheDred Scott Heritage foundation is
requesting a commemorativestamp to be issued from the US Postal
Service to recognize andremember the heritage of this amendment
by issuing a stamp with thelikeness of the man Dred Scott. But
we need your support and thesupport of thousands of people who
(22:27):
would like to see this happen.To achieve this goal, we ask you
to download, sign and sharethe one page petition with others.
To find the petition, pleasego to dredscottlives.org and click
on the Dred Scott PetitionDrive on the right side of the page.
On behalf of the Dred ScottHeritage foundation, this has been
Arnold Stricker of St. Louisin Tune.
(22:47):
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(23:09):
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(23:31):
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(23:54):
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(24:27):
Welcome back to St. Louis intune. This is Arnold Stricker with
Mark Langston. We're talkingto Ann Carpenter about her book you
Had Me at Pie, and she's beenteaching cooking classes on how to
make pie for more than 30years. And that is done at the Kitchen
Conservatory on ManchesterRoad. I am reading here every year
on the day beforeThanksgiving, she guides two dozen
(24:48):
people in making their holidaypies of pumpkin, apple and pecan.
Or pecan depending upon whatpart of the country you're from.
Yeah, she grew up makinghomemade pie dough for apple and
blueberry pies. I loveblueberry pie. Oh, then as an adult,
she discovered cherry pie. Ilove cherry pies too. With the cherries
from her backyard trees, shealways chooses pie over cake. For
(25:08):
dessert, black raspberry pieis really good too. If you can find
black raspberries, you.
Can find black raspberries atsome of the farmers markets. But
the challenge with raspberriesin a pie is they're very wet. So
raspberries and strawberries,when you just cook them up, you have
like soup. And so I think ifyou're going to do a. If you're going
(25:30):
to use any kind of raspberryin a pie, you need to mix it with
another fruit because youwon't have any substance for your
filling.
Now, I was reading you maybedo two of these methods, but maybe
you do both. You drain andthen cook down the juice, and then
you also add something to thejuice or the jus to thicken it.
(25:50):
A fruit pie is fruit andsugar. But if you cook fruit and
sugar, you have sauce, it'swet, and if it's wet, it's just.
It's very hard to eat with afork. So what you want to do for
apple and cherry, what I do isI sugar the fruit, let it sit, and
then for a couple of hours,and then I use a sieve to separate
(26:11):
the juice from the fruit. Itake that juice, which can be a couple
of cups. When you draw out thewater from the fruit, you can have
a lot of liquid. I then boilthat down and make a syrup that goes
back into the filling. So Iconcentrate the flavor of the fruit
and I get rid of all thatexcess water. Even you need to have
(26:31):
a thickener in your piefilling. And grandma always used
flour, but flour is a verypoor thickener and flour is very
pasty. So I prefer using astarch. Cornstarch is fine, but my
favorite is potato starchbecause I find with cornstarch you
can always taste that it hascornstarch in it. Potato starch is
(26:54):
a very neutral flavor. And youjust taste the fruit. It's fruit
forward pie. And you don'trealize that there's starch in potato
starch used to be much harderto find, but with the rise of the
gluten free diets, it's in allthe grocery stores now.
What about seeing some peoplehave used gelatin to thicken that
(27:14):
stuff?
You usually don't use gelatinin a pie because gelatin is firm
when it's cold.
Okay. Oh, there you go.
So sometimes you'll usegelatin in an icebox pie, but if
it's a fruit pie. The gelatinisn't going to help you because you
serve that at warmer roomtemperature and that's still going
to be liquid.
They're going to be gooey.Now, as I'm thinking about people
(27:36):
listening to the show andmaybe they've experimented with pies
and they think it's a littletoo difficult. What are the basic
kinds of tools that they needto accomplish a successful pie?
You do need a rolling pin toroll out the dough in order. I like
to use a pastry blender inorder to cut the fat into the flour.
(28:00):
And then a tool that I thinkneeds to be in every kitchen is called
a bench knife. It's a littleblock of stainless steel, a square
of stainless steel. And thathelps you move the dough around on
the board, make sure it's notsticking underneath, and helps you
to get orient the dough intothe pie plate. And then I do use
(28:20):
a rolling mat, a littlesilicone mat, because that keeps
my countertop clean. And italso is flexible for me to roll out
the dough without it stickingtoo badly.
Now there's. People don't cookanymore. It seems like they don't
bake anymore. They'veforgotten how to do that stuff. That's
why they buy all this stuff.But go and go into the real detail
(28:43):
because you know it's. Andfolks, you need to go to the classes
because that's the ultimate.Because then you get the hands on.
You see the equipment, if youlike the equipment. Like I don't
have that. You can buy that atkitchen conservatory. But go through.
Because you need to put flourdown on the mat. You need to put
flour on your rolling pin. Doall these things.
I like to flour the dough. Idon't flour the pin. But that's interesting.
(29:05):
That's just my technique onthat. But I think it's true that
a lot of people don't cook.But I think there is a hunger and
a desire for those smells andbaking in the home kitchen. And we
saw that post Covid with therise of sourdough bread and notice
(29:27):
my pun.
But I was gonna say, how isthat getting by us?
But so there are a lot ofpeople who are getting very into
some of these specializedbaking arts and mastering them in
their own kitchen. Because thepleasure is the smell, the taste,
the I did this. This is myproduct from my own hand. And anything
(29:50):
you bake in your own kitchenis going to be better than anything
you buy.
Yes. Now let's talk aboutflour. What kind of flour should
we buy? Gold Medal everydayflour, or I know there's King Arthur
flour. There's a lot of bunchof different kinds of flour.
I use all purpose flour in mypie dough, and I think you can use
any brand.
(30:11):
Okay. All right.
That's good.
You heard it from the sourcethere, right? All right. And your
favorite pie is what, Anne?
Cherry.
Ooh, I'm with you. I likecherry. A good cherry pie.
A nice scoop of vanilla beanice cream on top.
It's very important. The typeof cherries that you use for cherry
pie, you want to use what'scalled pie cherries or Montmorency,
(30:35):
and they're small and tart. Soyou can't make a cherry pie with
bing cherry. They don't havethe right texture or taste for a
pie. This goes back to theapple conversation. The fruit you
eat is not the same as thefruit you bake with.
Right.
You want to have. You want tohave something tartar and with a
bigger punch to it.
Do you get frozen? Do you buyfresh? And then you have to pit them
(30:58):
and everything like that.
So there's the challenge withcherries. As you mentioned, I have
a cherry tree in myMontmorency cherry tree in my backyard,
which means I have to get outthe ladder. I got to climb up, I
got to pick the cherries. Ithen have to. To pit the cherries
and to prepare them forprocessing for the pie. Or at the
end of July, you can get inyour car, you can drive nine hours
(31:21):
to Door County, Wisconsin, andyou buy the cherries. Not only picked,
they're pitted. And then youdrive back, and then you have cherry.
You know, I get a couplehundred pounds of cherries, and I
figure one or two cherry piesa week is about the right amount.
And you freeze. Can you freeze them?
Yeah, they freeze very well.Some fruit freeze very well. Blueberries,
(31:43):
blackberries, cherries, theyall freeze very well. The only caveat
I give. If you've got frozenfruit that you're going to put in
a pie, you must defrost thefruit completely before making your
pie, because what a freezerdoes is that it breaks up the cells
in the fruit, just like thefreeze will freeze your pipes in
(32:03):
your house. So what happens isall the cells burst out with the
water. You get this big puddleof liquid. You don't want to put
that big puddle of liquid inyour pie.
No doubt.
Wow. My head's spinning. Thisis all good stuff.
It really is. And I can'tbelieve that. I can believe because
(32:23):
it's a great time to do itright before Thanksgiving in teaching
people. But how often do youdo these classes on pie making?
We have pie classes regularlybecause there's a desire for pie.
But there's no question theday before. Thanks. Thanksgiving.
I call it our pie day becausewe did this year. We did 75 pies
that day.
Wow. Now do. This is going tobe. All right, here's a curveball.
(32:47):
Do you have a pie class on PI day?
We have. We have. Of course. Iunderstand that's now been renamed
St. Louis Day.
That's true. Yeah. 314 day.
But when we do it on pie day,we try to do a savory pie. It's not
just the dessert pies. But doa meat pie or a.
A meat pie. What is mincemeat pie?
(33:07):
Mincemeat is a. Is driedfruits and candied rind all cooked
together. And then. And they.The reason why they you. There are
some old fashioned versionsthat will have meat in it, but usually
it's the beef fat that's inthere. And that fat. Beef fat's a
(33:27):
great flavor.
Oh yeah.
Just like pork fat is a greatflavor. So it's. The fruit is cooked
in this fat and you cook itall up and can it and then it's available
for when you just dump it intoa pie shell and make a pie out of
it. But it's. It's actually Idon't have a mincemeat pie recipe
in this book, but I havesomething that's a little similar.
(33:48):
It's the raisin pie. So if youlook at my raisin pie recipe that
has a lot of the same kinds offruits that are in mincemeat pie.
I remember growing up, ofcourse they were Mrs. Smiths. My
mom never made the pies. Andthis mince meat pie, the most disgusting
(34:09):
thing that it's like eating a fruitcake.
My dad liked mincemeat pie. Iwas sitting here just thinking about
that. It's rough. I nevercould do it.
No, I couldn't either. Well,very interesting.
What's. I think it's becauseyou got fixated on the word meat
and you weren't actuallythinking. You didn't know what the
(34:31):
ingredients were. So I think.Do you like raisins?
Oh, I love raisins.
Okay, so if I said raisin pie,does that sound more enticing?
I'd probably try that. Yeah.
So you got it. Raisin applepie. That's a lot of what mincemeat
pie is. It just has a lot ofthem in. And fruitcake Then we have
to talk fruitcake. I bet Icould make you a fruitcake where
you're like, oh, yeah, thisis. After all, what's. Fruitcake
(34:53):
is just a vehicle for brandyand rum.
That's true. And to pass itaround from year to year because
nobody wants to eat it. It'sregifted for several days, adding
more rum. Yeah.
Wow.
The other nice thing aboutthat you've done here in the book
is you give these tips onvariety of pages. But I'm going to
(35:19):
talk about the tip for theFresh Concord grape pie. Fresh Concord
grapes are available only inAugust and September. Each grape
needs to be squeezed to removethe seeds. But this pie is worth
the effort once a year. Youcould do this by calendar and schedule
when the fruit is in season.
You don't want to eat a peachpie. Not in the summer.
(35:39):
No.
It's only July and August thatwe're eating peach pieces.
That's right. And I like whitepeach pie.
Okay.
Versus yellow peach.
That's different.
Yeah, it is a little different flavor.
This is a weird question. Whatabout pot pies? Do you do those at
all?
Oh, yes. Pot pies are usuallymeat based. So we're back to the
meat here. But you have achicken pot pie or any steak and
(36:03):
kidney pie, as the Britishalways like to do. But it's just.
You have a. In a pot pie, youthen have your. Really your soup
in the bowl and then you topit with a pie crust and bake and
eat it. The. The other versionof that is pasty, where it's a turnover
and the pasties are filledwith meat and vegetables.
Calzone. Similar.
(36:23):
It is like a calzone, exceptit comes from Wales.
Okay. Wow.
Wow. I love pot pies. Chickenpot pie.
Yeah.
When we have to qualify thisor for those people who think there's
hashish in it, but it's.There's. There's. There's no pot
in this.
I'm so sorry about.
There's no pot in a pot pie.
(36:44):
But we have a class calledHigh on Pot Pies, so there you go.
Now you're confused.
You have to play with it. Andthey have catchy titles at Kitchen
Conservatory.
We like to have fun with our food.
They really do. They reallydo. We've taken several classes there.
It's a lot of fun. Mark, youneed to go there with Maria.
(37:05):
I'm going to. I'm thinkingabout this afternoon over there.
The most challenging pie thatyou've ever had to make. What is
that?
I think people usually findmeringue pies to be the most challenging.
Why is that?
Well, if you think about yourgrandma's recipe for a lemon meringue
pie, or if you ever had one ofthose, sometimes, and it's first
(37:25):
you have to bake the piecrust. We bake it blind because the
blame blind. Blind baking iswhen you put a cold filling into
a pie. And so you need to haveyour crust fully baked before you
put your filling in. So whenyou. And if you just put the dough
in the pie plate and stick itin the oven, the sides will fold
down and the bottom will popup. So you don't have a cavity. So
(37:48):
you need to line. You lay yourpie dough in your pie plate. You
line it with aluminum foil andfill it with pie weights, which then
will keep the shape of thecavity. You bake it until the pastry
is baked. You take it out, youtake out your pie weight, and then
you can fill it with yourfilling. Sometimes people have lemon
meringue pies where the lemonfilling didn't sit up, but they don't
(38:11):
realize that till they cutinto it because they've put the meringue
on it. You put your meringueon it back in the oven. It's a complicated
step to make a lemon meringuepie. So I actually, instead of my
lemon meringue filling is alemon curd, which is much easier
to make. It's a stovetoplemon, where it's lemon, butter,
(38:31):
sugar, eggs, and you cook ittill it comes to a boil, and then.
And then you can put that inyour pie filling. And that's always
firm when it's cold.Interesting, because the butter keeps
it cold. Firm, I should say.Cold butter will keep it firm.
Butter again.
Yes. You notice a theme herewith dessert. We like our butter.
Stick of butter.
The stick of butter.
(38:52):
I'm the stick of butter guy.
And people who maybe theystart this and they throw it away,
you talk about somethingthat's a real simple one to start
out with.
So if you think pie is toodaunting, I recommend cobbler and
cobbler crisp. All those whereyou have a fruit bottom, it's just
(39:13):
in a 9 by 13. It's not in afancy pie plate. You can do it in
anything. And then it has atopping on it. And there are lots
of different versions oftoppings for fruit, for baked fruit
things some people do oatmealor brown sugar, all kinds of things
like that. But my favoritetopping of all, and the easiest one
to make, it's just. You can doit blindfolded you can do it with
(39:36):
any fruit you have. It's aone, one, one. Everybody can remember
it. It's one cup of butter,one cup of sugar, one egg, one cup
of flour, a little bit ofbaking powder. Spread it on and it's.
Everybody says it's the mostdelicious cobbler they've ever had.
There you go. And you put thegoo in your nine by 12 or whatever.
(39:56):
Or your nine by 12.
Well, you have the fruit onthe bottom mixed up with a little
sugar, and then you put yourtopping on, and then you bake it
for 45.
Minutes at what, 375?
Yeah, that's fine. And thetopping spreads and some of those
more complicated ones, they'llhave you do a rolled biscuit topping
topping. This just. Yeah, thisis just real simple.
Mark's writing all this stuff down.
I am.
(40:17):
Mark. The cookbook isavailable at Kitchen conservatory
for a year. 15 dol.
He has one. He just didn'tbring it today.
I don't. Do I?
Yeah.
Oh. Oh, I do, actually. Yes, I do.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay. Is chocolate andbananas. I'm looking at the chocolate
custard and banana cream piebananas. Do you want to use the bananas
(40:41):
when they're really ripe, whenthey're a little green, when they're
a little harder and a littlesofter? When do you want to use them?
I think that's a matter ofpersonal preference. Some people
like their bananas firm, andsome people like their bananas mushy.
And I find they don't agree onthat issue. You either go one way
or the other. I remember agrocery guy told me once that the
(41:01):
bananas cause the single mostsource of complaints in the grocery
store. Too green, too ripe.People like their bananas just the
way they like their bananas.
Of course, if they get themgreen and they'll ripen up.
Haven't you ever heard, younever buy green bananas if you think
you're not going to make it.
(41:22):
What kind of chocolate shouldbe used?
Delicious chocolate. Chocolateyou want to eat chocolate you think
tastes delicious.
So versus baking chocolate ormilk chocolate or dark chocolate
or 70% or 60%.
I like a dark bittersweetchocolate. But not everybody likes
that. So you use the chocolateyou like.
Okay. Okay.
(41:43):
Makes sense to me.
It makes sense to me.
Oh, yeah, this is wonderful.
Is there a difference in usinga. Like a pie tin versus using, like,
a glass pie plate or a ceramicpie plate as far as baking thyme
and how the crust develops?
(42:04):
Usually pie is served in thedish it's baked in. So people like
to use A dish that is prettyso they can take it to the table
and show it off. And the metalpie plates are not as pretty for
showing off your pie. But interms of baking, I do the ceramic
because I think you get acrisper bottom crust. Nobody likes
(42:27):
a soggy bottom. So the whole.One of the tricks in making a good
pie is not to have a soggybottom. And some of the tricks on
that are, A, make sure youroven's hot. Bake the pie at 375 degrees.
B, when the pie dough, whenthe pie goes into the oven, it's
cold because cold dough plushot oven equals flaky pastry. So
(42:51):
you don't want your pie doughto just sit out on the countertop
and warm up. Because as thepie, as the dough warms up, it's
then going to start to absorbthe liquid filling and then that's
going to make the bottom crustsoggy. So you want to put in your.
And you don't want to pour ahot filling into the pie dough. So
you put your filling into thepie dough, put the top crust on,
(43:12):
run it in the oven as quicklyas possible, and then that'll get
you a better bottom crust.
Couple things. Do you, halfwaythrough, do you turn?
I've never found that necessary.
Okay. Okay.
But ovens vary. Some ovensdefinitely have hot spots.
How about cutting into the top?
That's an old wives tale.
Old wives tale. Interesting.
No ness. No need for that.
(43:33):
Don't need to put that littlepie bird. Pie bird in there either.
Boy, that's such a fraud.
Let us know what you thinkabout that, Anne. Wow, that's interesting.
It is.
There's no point to it.
Who knew?
Yeah, because he's like torelease, but.
It doesn't actually workbecause the bottom of the bird just
(43:55):
gets. Gets clogged up withdough and there's no. The steam never
goes through that to release it.
Interesting.
Steam's good.
Steam is good.
Yeah.
Wow. Okay.
Is there much in there aboutcobblers though? We used to make
cobblers on camping trips.We'd take cast iron pots and we'd
put a bunch of coals on thetop of it and we would make peach
(44:17):
cobblers. And they would bethe best things in the world.
Sure. Because you're outcamping, everything tastes delicious
because you're starving.
That's a good point. That'sfor sure.
But I have one cobbler recipein it in the chapter called Not Pie
and it's the best cobblerrecipe. And I promise you that once
you take this cobbler recipe,you'll never go back to any other
cobbler recipe.
Oh, okay. I'm going to take alook at that.
(44:38):
She's got apple brown Bettyhere, too. Breadcrumbs and butter,
cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves,lemon, sugar, salt. Is that similar
to a fruit goblin?
Well, a brown Betty is an oldfashioned thing. And if you have
some really yummy bread likebrioche, and you grind that up and
then you mix it with morebutter and then you sprinkle that
(45:00):
on top of your fruit, it canmake a really nice crust.
Brioche bread. The way to go.Brioche bun for a hamburger.
Yeah. So brioche is thefattiest of all the bread. It's full
of egg yolks and butter.That's what makes it so good. So
when Marie Antoinette said,let them eat cake, the word she used
(45:20):
in French was brioche.
Brioche, yeah. Let them eat pastry.
Okay. I'm fine with that.
Oh, my. So what's on thedocket? You have another pie book?
Pie two. You had me at pie two.
I really think that I coveredthe basics of pie. You can substitute
other fruits from the ones.For example, this book doesn't have
(45:42):
a recipe for strawberryrhubarb, but you can use the generic
fruit pie filling and justsubstitute different fruits and make
up strawberry rhubarb or anapricot or nectarine pie. You can
always make plenty ofvariations along that. I mean, I
don't have a key lime in here,but if you do, if you make the lemon
meringue with lime zest andlime juice instead, I'd call that
(46:05):
a key lime pie. So I don'tthink we need book two. However,
the folks at Reedy Pressedhave told me they do want another
book from me. And what we'regoing to do is soup.
Ooh, ooh.
Chowder, bisque, gumbo, creamof soups.
(46:26):
Yeah.
Gazpacho, vichysoise. Yeah.
Made some turkey noodle soup.
Good.
From the carcass the other day.
Did you now had that fordinner last night. Wow.
So I have techniques on that.
Yeah.
Yeah. And one of the besttechniques you should do with your
carcass when you make yourturkey soup is you need to cut up
(46:47):
the carcass. Did you cut itup, Arnold?
I was pretty. We hadspatchcocked it and so it was pretty
much destroyed.
Well, no. See, it's reallywhat makes you a better bone broth,
because that's what you'redoing is you're making a Bone broth
is you need to expose themarrow in the bone. So it's very
important.
Chop it up.
That the backbone inparticular gets. Gets cut up because
(47:08):
then your stock is so muchmore flavorful.
Yeah. And I had spatchcockedit, so the backbone was gone.
Oh, the backbone is the bestbone for making stock, truly.
There we went.
I have a different method ofspatchcocking. I don't cut out the
backbone. I leave the backbonein because then the bone supports
the meat. It gives you. Itdoesn't fall apart.
It keeps it up off the.
(47:30):
Yeah. It's like. It gives youa rack that your meat is on. It's
also very good if you're goingto grill it is to leave the backbone
on. But what I do is I cut therib cage from the wing to the thigh
bone, and then I'm able toflatten it that way, and the backbone
stays. So that's my. I have aYouTube video on how to. I call it
leaping frog chicken becauseit looks like a leaping frog.
(47:53):
I have to look at that.
Let's go to her house.
You know what scrapcocking is,right? You take the back out, and
then you actually.
But you're flattening it.
You're taking.
You're taking a round bird,and you're making it flat. And it
comes from dispatching the cuck.
Say, hey, I never knew.
(48:14):
I didn't. That's why you haveto listen to this show, folks.
Who knew?
How many new things have welearned today?
Oh, I'm running out of notesor areas to put notes on. I know
this has been really fun.
This has been great. And Iwant you to come back when you get
that soup book done.
Certainly.
And bring samples. You can'thave her back without samples. We'll
(48:34):
set up a little table over here.
We don't have the kitchen setup to do.
We'll figure it out. We'llfind a place.
This has been fun. It's agreat book, folks. You had me at
PI. It's by Ann Carpenter. Youcan get this at Reedy Press. This
is a great book for theupcoming holidays. And. And it will
help you in making pies.Husbands. Maybe you want to get this
(48:58):
for your wife or your daughteror yourself.
Stocking stuffer.
Yeah. Great. Stocking stuffer.It will roll up and fit in there.
And you need to try some ofthese out. And I'm encouraging everybody
to do this because it's justnot the ladies that should be making
pies. There's a lot of a Lotof men in your class.
So in the introduction, I tellthe story of student of mine who
(49:21):
was a retired corporateexecutive, and he decided that he
was going to take on piebaking as his extracurricular activity
in retirement. And he masteredthe art of making pies. And he does
what he calls comfort pie.Somebody's back from the hospital,
somebody's bereaved. He makesa pie and brings them a comfort pie.
(49:42):
And at last count, when hetold me he'd now done 80 of them.
Wow, that's great.
Much better than a bouquet offlowers is to get a comfort pie.
And do you have a favorite pie?
Cherry.
Oh, that's right. I beg yourpardon. I forgot.
Cherry.
Cherry pie. Which One of myfavorites, too? And just. This is.
(50:04):
And. And having pie forbreakfast. I've done that.
Do it all the time.
I've done that.
Yeah. If we have pie aroundour house, it is my go to breakfast.
There's no question about it.
Yeah.
Eggs, fruit.
It's got all the food groupsin it, the important food groups.
I'll tell you right now.
And if you have the rightvegetables in there.
(50:25):
Squashed.
Yeah, there you go.
Nuts.
Yeah.
I'm looking forward to thesoup book.
Yeah, I am, too.
Soup is good.
Now, this kind of goes. Oh, Ineed to do our word of the. Because
it relates to what we'retalking about here. Our word of the
day is Saturn 9. S A, T, U, R,N, I, N, E. It means bitter or scornful,
(50:49):
showing a brooding ill humor.
Wait, wait, wait. That is thewrong word for after our talk about
delicious pie. Why are youbringing us down?
His saturnine attitude left me depressed.
Pie is about making peoplehappy. Pie is about comfort. Can
(51:10):
you please come up with the opposite?
Okay.
Because this is the wrong wordfor us today.
I've got one. If someone callsyou fat because you've been eating
some wonderful pie, justignore them. You're bigger than that.
Okay, okay.
(51:30):
How was that one?
Marginally better.
Marginally. Okay, I like that one.
That's a good one. Let's see here.
That is funny.
As a kid, I used to watch thewizard of Oz and wonder how someone
could talk if they didn't havea brain. Then I got social media.
(51:51):
Okay.
Let'S see here. Ooh, there's arecipe for pastrami Reuben. Okay.
Every time I try to eathealthy, along comes Thanksgiving,
Christmas, summer, Friday, orWednesday, and it ruins it for me.
Remember what I started offwith. Your mental health is just
(52:11):
as important as your physicalhealth. Eat delicious food. You will
be mentally healthy.
There you go. There you are.
I think that's. That's it.
We need to close on thosewords. Mental health. For your mental
health. Eat this pie.
Yes.
All right, man. Thanks forcoming in today.
It was my pleasure.
Wow.
Mark had a lot of fun.
(52:33):
Gotta crank up that oven. Getyour supplies, folks. Don't forget
to go to kitchen conservatoryand catch some of these classes.
Make your house smell better.
Yeah, that's exactly right.That's exactly right. Wow. Folks,
that's all for this hour. Wethank you for listening. If you've
enjoyed this episode and yoursalivating, salivatory or salivating
(52:55):
glands are really going, youcan listen to additional shows@stintune.com
consider leaving a review onApple Podcast, Podchaser, or your
preferred podcast platform.Your feedback helps us reach more
listeners and continue togrow. I want to thank Bob Berthesel
for our theme music, ourguest, Ann Carpenter, and co host
Mark Langston. We thank youfor being a part of our community
of curious mind. St. Louis intune is a production of Motifs Media
(53:17):
Group and the US RadioNetwork. Remember to keep seeking,
keep learning, walk worthy,and let your light shine. For St.
Louis in Tune, I'm ArnoldStricker, SA.
What do you like to eat forbreakfast? Our guest thinks that
the only thing better than awarm pie is leftover pie for breakfast
on St. Louis in June. Welcometo St. Louis in Tune and thank you
(00:25):
for joining us for freshperspectives on issues and events
with experts, communityleaders and everyday people who make
a difference in shaping oursociety and world. I'm Arnold Stricker
along with co host MarkLangston. Mark. It's been a while,
sir.
It has. The holidays snuck upon us. At least the Thanksgiving
holidays. I have tucked mybelly in and I am back.
(00:47):
You let a belt link out or something?
A couple of them, I'm afraid.I know. It gets worse every year.
I don't.
Every year the pants they get,they shrink.
And that pecan pie. Oh, my.
Oh, yeah, pies. We're gonnatalk about pies.
Yeah, it's all. Pecan pie. Isall. It's sugar. I think it's just
sugar.
(01:08):
It's got pecans in it.
Oh, does it? Okay.
We haven't been together forso long. I did not get my Return
to Civility book out.
Oh, it's time to return. It'sbeen a challenging month that I've
been.
It has been. It has been. AndI can give us some civility that's
(01:29):
not humorous, something that'sactually serious. Because sometimes
with the way life goes,sometimes I think the last show we
did was just, what, rightafter the election and some people
were losing their minds andsome people were having fun, their
candidate won and everythinglike that. But you have to understand
(01:49):
that life needs to be inbalance. And it's important that
we keep things in balance,that we don't go off track and we
don't decide to rely onindividuals for our happiness or
to rely on things that arehappening in the world to determine
(02:12):
what we should do. Live life.You can't worry about what's going
to be happening tomorrow. AndI know you need to save for the rainy
day, but at the same time, youneed to not let life stop. And some
people do that. They just putthings on hold and very beneficial.
I actually can't find a goodone. All these things are funny.
Maybe at this point we coulduse funny. But. Yes. You said a word
(02:35):
that I think is great isbalance. There's so much balance
for me is like that magicalword. We need balance. Everybody
needs balance all the time on everything.
Yeah.
And I don't want it to be allRepublican all the time and I don't
want it to be all Democrat allthe time. We need a Balance in there.
And I want it to be focused onthe people.
(02:57):
Wouldn't that be a novel idea?
You're talking about balance.We used to talk about this at work
is people, they don't likechange. And change is disequilibrium.
And when your disequilibriumis equilibrium, you can really ebb
and flow with whatever comesyour way. But that's a difficult
(03:18):
place to get to when you canmove ebb and flow with things and
when you're bouncing back andforth and that becomes the norm when
change is the norm. Change ishappening all the time. We're growing
older. I know you aren't,Mark, but.
Oh, yes, I am. Talk to my knees.
Yeah, but you know what I'm talking.
Totally, absolutely.
So that's our return tocivility balancing.
(03:39):
Very heavy. We're opening theshow very heavy, aren't we?
But we're going to go delvinginto an area that's juicy and it's
got my chops licking here. Theart of pie making. Ann Carpenter,
author and baker, is in studiotalking about her book, you Had Me
at Pie, anne. Welcome to St.Louis in Tune.
Thank you very much, Arnold,for having me.
What's the title?
(03:59):
You Had Me at Pie.
You Had Me at Pie. Explainthat for us.
I'm with her.
Do you ever turn down pie?
I usually don't.
Yeah. Pie will bring balancein your life.
Yes.
Pie will make you happy.
It will.
Pie will make you happy. Andyou choose pie over cake?
Always. Always. You choose awet dessert over a dry dessert.
(04:21):
I get that.
Cake is dry, cake is stale,pie is flaky. Pastry crust, gooey
center.
There's one place I will buycake in the city of St. Louis.
Okay, let's hear it.
Cakery Bakery. Shameful plugfor Cakery Bakery. Great, great cake.
Never heard of it.
Even cupcakes, they have aplace called the cup right behind
(04:44):
the chase.
Yeah, I have pie for breakfast even.
By the way, pie for breakfastis totally delicious. Because after
all, it's fruit.
I do.
It's crust. Why is that not aperfect breakfast? People often ask
me, what about? How do I makethis healthy? And my answer is, your
mental health just asimportant as your physical health.
(05:06):
Oh, there you go. So I havethat extra piece of.
Does eating delicious foodmake you happy?
Oh, yeah.
So therefore, delicious foodis health food.
Where did you. When did youstart all this?
Oh, I've been baking piessince I was a child. I always loved
to mess around in the kitchen.And it took me a while to figure
Out. This was going to be mylife's work, but there was never
(05:27):
a time I wasn't baking.
You teach it's been, what, 30plus years at Kitchen conservatory.
Yes.
And the new digs are reallynice out there on Manchester Road.
On January 1st of this year,we moved to Manchester Road to a
new building and we increasedfrom two kitchens to three teaching
kitchens.
Wow, that's great.
(05:47):
Is that right by the schnooks?
Across the street, the oldbowling alley? Where? The old bowling
alley.
I've driven by it and I've.
Next door to Carl's. Drive in.That's the spot everybody knows.
Absolutely.
Some good smash burgers.
Oh, yeah. And IBC root beer.Great place. I'll be talking. I see
them doing classes and things there.
Yeah, we do classes and thingsevery day. We do 30 cooking classes
(06:12):
a week.
Holy smokes.
On 30 different topics.
Oh, yeah. And you can get abrochure which.
Add a little more.
My wife and I, we were goingto a Valentine's Day kind of cooking
together and great place tobuy the equipment. You have to have
equipment.
6,000 essential cooking tools.
That's right. There's goodstuff there.
(06:33):
Is that right?
Absolutely. Go there for good stuff.
We're gonna have to go there.
That's what the kids get usfor Christmas. Kitchen utensil stuff.
Okay.
Kitchen supply kinds of things.
This is pretty neat. So it'sjust west of Brentwood Boulevard.
West of Brentwood. Right.
On the north side on Manchester.
Yeah.
Okay, I'm coming by.
So you've been doing this andI think there's a thousand kinds
(06:59):
of different pies because youhave fruit pies, you have non. What
you called it something that Iwasn't up from. Transparent pies.
So transparent pie, a custardpie is eggs and cream. So when you
set a pie with eggs butthere's no cream, that's a transparent
pie.
And those are veryinteresting. Those are very interesting.
(07:19):
That's what a pecan pie is. Atransparent pie.
Okay. With pecans, Mark.
My favorite. Just my favorite.That's all I can tell you.
Would you like it, Mark, if wejust did the syrup and sugar and
eggs and dispensed with the pecans?
That's a chess pie then.
Well, a chess pie usually hassome. It usually has some. What do
(07:40):
you call it, some littlecornmeal in it to give it a little
grit and a little texture onit. And the pecan pie doesn't have
any of that flour in it. Butactually if you take the pecans out
and you add some may, you'vemade a maple syrup pie.
Oh, stop.
And the Canadians love that, eh?
What?
You put that on your pancake.
(08:01):
It's got crust on it. So it'salready on the pancake.
Okay, so I have this questionas you were talking about that.
I'm gonna ask that.
I really love key lime piealso. Key lime pie is what kind of
pie?
Oh, my.
Is that a just. Cause it'slike a combo.
No, key lime's a custard piebecause there's cream and eggs.
Okay.
So if you think of lemonmeringue, that's a meringue pie.
Cause you got a meringue ontop. I actually think key lime is
(08:23):
really good with a meringue ontop. Like a lemon meringue.
Yeah, it is. And key lime. Ihad good key lime pie down in New
Orleans or Nolens, and it wasalmost gray. It was like a little
grayish green.
So you mean they didn't putthe food coloring in, so it was real
limes that they used?
Yes.
Wow.
It was really good.
Now in Florida, they do somekind of key lime piece where they
(08:45):
use a salted pretzel crust.Where's the name for that? It's,
I don't know, beach pie orsomething like that, as they call
it. Yeah.
Ooh.
Oh, you should have broughtsamples with you. I'm just saying
so you could have them forbreakfast. I know. She should have
brought samples. I don't know what.
I think that's cruel to thelisteners to hear you enjoying food
that they can.
(09:05):
Oh, I don't think so. I thinkit's absolutely fine just slobbering.
All over their radios right now.
In cooking class, a lot oftimes people will call and say, do
we get to eat the food? And Isay, it would be awfully cruel if
you make all this food andthen say, no, no food for you.
We're giving this away. Or theteacher just eats it in front of
(09:26):
the students.
Oh, my.
All right, I've got so manygazillion questions here. Do you
put. Okay, so this one's justpopping right out because I have
to get the answer to this. Doyou put ice cream or whipped cream
on top of any of your piesthat you eat?
Absolutely. Maybe sometimesboth. But some pies just demand to
(09:47):
have a topping on it. Now, youdon't need a topping on meringue
pie because that's selfcontained with its meringue topping.
But I think an apple pie withice cream and a pumpkin pie with
Whipped cream. Is anything better?
Yeah. Yeah.
Probably not. Yeah.
Have you ever usedhuckleberries in a pie?
I have, but they're hard to find.
(10:08):
They're hard to find. I hadhuckleberry pie a long time ago,
and it was. Maybe it was howit was made. It was. It didn't taste
very good.
It did not. It didn't haveenough sugar in it. Because huckleberries
are tart. They're very tart.And do you know what defines it?
Huckleberry is wild. Sothey're not cultivated. That's why
in the Tom the Mark Twainnovel, the hero is Huckleberry Finn,
(10:33):
because he's untamed.
So there we go.
I love. You know what? Ilearned something new on the show
every time I tune in. Thatmakes so much sense when you say
that. Who knew?
Now you have to reread thenovel to see.
I'm gonna have to. And I willkeep that in the.
Yes, the Untamed.
(10:54):
Like you. It's a lot like you,Arnold. Untamed.
My name Arnold Huckle.Huckleberry Stricker.
Yeah. Untamed.
Arnold. Okay, okay. All right.Let's start at the basic thing which
people struggle with is thecrust. Ann.
Yes. It's foundational to the pie.
What mistakes do people make?And now what should they do other
(11:17):
than buy your book? Becauseyou have a great recipe in there
on crust? Because crust isreally what to me, besides the goo?
I call it the goo, but itreally distinguishes.
Using the technical termthere, I was.
Saying it distinguishes, youknow, a store bought Mrs. Smith's
from one man. You got a flakycrust on top that apple pie. It's
(11:37):
just incredible.
Have you ever eaten a pie,been served a pie, and you end up
eating filling and you leavethe crust on the plate because the
crust isn't very good?
Yes.
We can't have that. So in mybook, I do step by step photographs
of exactly what you should doat each step of the way. And because
I think this is where peopleget frustrated. They think it's too
(12:00):
difficult. They really panicabout the crust. But we can solve
this problem if you have apiece of French tart. It is a all
butter crust and the crustsupports the filling. So imagine
you can eat that tart out ofyour hand. You can pick it up because
the crust is sturdy enough tosupport the filling. That's not what
(12:21):
pie is. Pie is flaky, but it'salso tender. And so you want to get
that balance of flaky andtender. So that pie is messy. Because
a messy pie is a bettertasting pie. Here's how. My trick
is that it's 50% butter forflavor and 50% shortening for texture.
(12:42):
Because butter will never makea tender crust. It'll make a flaky
crust, but not a tender crust.And the shortening makes a super
tender crust. Now, if youthink of grandma's pie, which was
probably an all lard crustthat was super tender, but it didn't
have the butter taste.
(13:03):
And it's always better with butter.
That's our motto at kitchenConservatory. Have you ever found
anything that wasn't improvedby butter?
No. If it doesn't taste good,just put a tablespoon of butter in
or a stick.
I'm all about the stick of butter.
Some require that. Somerecipes require a whole stick of
(13:25):
butter, which is real butter.
Let's talk about butter.
Well, what we're making hereis we're not making salad, we're
making dessert. So we need thedessert to be worth the calories.
Now, some people will say, canI substitute margarine? Tell them
why they can't do that, Ann.
It doesn't have the flavor.
There it is right there. Idon't even know why they make margarine.
But okay.
(13:48):
To clog people's arteries.
Must be. Doctors are doing it.
So we get the crust. Now whatabout pans? There's different sizes.
What should an average piesize pie.
Plates can run from 8 inch, 9inch, 10 inch. And really you can
use the same crust, recipe andthe same filling between an 8, 9
(14:10):
and 10. And in the 8, your pieis going to be a little taller. In
the 10, it's going to be alittle bit wider, but it'll work
in any size pan. Use the pansyou have and your.
Recipe covers all of those sizes.
Yeah, you can, you may have toroll out the crust a little thinner
for a 10 inch and it'll be alittle thicker on an 8 inch, but
it's in the end it's going tobe delicious.
(14:30):
Okay, now let's. You're reallygetting, we're getting down into
brass tacks on crust here. Howthick? And I know it's going to determine
the size of your pan, but howthick should generally the crust
be?
So the thickness of the crusthas nothing to do with the flakiness
and tenderness of the crust.The way my recipe works, it's a 2
(14:50):
cup measure. So for a doublecrust. So 1 cup of flour per crust.
So that means it's the sameamount of dough for the bottom crust.
As it is for the top crust.But the bottom crust is going to
be a little thinner becauseyou have to go up the sides of the
pie plate and the top crust isgoing to be a little thicker because
the diameter of the top is notas big as the diameter of the bottom.
(15:11):
But it's all good.
And then you do your littlepinchies at the side and things like
that.
Crimping the crust for afluted pie crust edge.
Man, I'm glad she's here.
Crimping.
That's right.
Me pinching.
Yeah, you're pinching. Yeah,you're all wrong. You need to take
the class, get the terminologycorrect. That's right.
So lattice crust, top lattice.No. You don't like that.
(15:35):
I'm not a big fan either.
You need a really sturdy,tough dough to do the lattice weave.
And that's not a dough youwant to eat.
Okay.
Yes.
It's going to be tough.
Yeah. It's not going to betender. So with my pie crust recipe,
you cannot make a latticebecause you can't do the weaver.
(15:57):
Okay.
I think it takes away from thecooking of the pie, too. Could be
just me, but it just seemslike it does.
I think they devised latticecrust for the food stylist devised
it because then you see theberries busting out of the pie and
it looks cute. But I'm all inabout the taste.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah.
Not the looks. We want totaste it. What's it gonna look like
in your belly? We don't careabout the looks.
(16:18):
What are you doing there?
I don't know. I'm over here.
This is Arnold Stricker withMark Langston. We're talking to Ann
Carpenter about her book, youhad me at Pie, and it's available
at Reedy Press. And it's. I'mgoing to just run through a little
of the contents here. A doublecrusted fruit pies, custard pies,
meringue pies, transparentpies, chocolate pies, not pie. We're
(16:39):
going to get to that one. Butshe also has tips for the perfect
pie dough to blind bake pie.Graham cracker pie crust. Graham
cracker pie crust is reallywhat's challenging about that.
My graham cracker pie crust isnot the graham cracker pie crust
you're thinking about.
Okay.
So what I do. Because you seethe problem with usually a graham
cracker crust, which on a keylime pie is just graham cracker crumbs
(17:02):
and melted butter. Meh. What'sthe. There's no pastry there. I'm
a Pastry girl. I want pastry.Flaky, tender pastry. So what I do
is I take my perfect piedough, and instead of rolling it
out in flour, I roll it out ingraham cracker crumbs. So I get the
nuttiness of the grahamcrackers, but still the flakiness
of pastry. It's very good witha pumpkin pie.
(17:26):
Ooh. And you said something inthe book about pumpkin pie that was.
Should we say that?
Yes. Let's hear it.
So what is pumpkin?
Yeah, go ahead.
It's a. What is it a vegetable?
It's a gourd.
It's a gourd.
It's a squash.
Yeah.
And so if you. The Libby. Thecans of Libby pumpkin all come from
(17:48):
Morton, Illinois. All of thepumpkin for Libby is grown in the
fields around Morton,Illinois. About three hours north
of here. The cannery is in thefield. They have hybridized a kind
of butternut squash that's alittle bit more orangey in color
and huge. So they get moresquash per plant, and they put them
(18:08):
right into. And they pack themright into the can as soon as they.
They harvest them. So whatyou're eating in the can is actually
butternut squash. So I alwayssay a fresh butternut squash is better
than a canned pumpkin.
Okay. And she even goes intohow you take care of that butternut
squash to get it going, get itright. All the cooking and everything.
(18:34):
It's the best pumpkin pieyou've ever eaten. And, of course,
what I tell my students is,don't tell your friends and family
that they're eating squashpie, because that just doesn't have
the. The cachet. Tell themit's pumpkin pie, and they'll say,
wow, is this pumpkin pie? Somuch better.
I'm telling somebody it'spumpkin pie and it's sweet potato
pie. Have you ever made asweet potato pie?
Sweet potatoes tastedifferent. That's a. What is it?
(18:56):
It's a different kind ofplant. But sweet potatoes have no
connection to squash, and theyhave a very different flavor.
Interesting.
Wow.
This is why we are having Annon the show today.
I am thankful for it.
Yes. Because she goes, apples.And. And this is another thing about
apple pie. You have to get theright kind of apples.
I'm with you there. I'mfinicky when it comes to apple pie.
(19:18):
So an apple for eating is notan apple for cooking, right?
Ooh.
Yes. So the apples you enjoyeating usually are not designed for
long cooking, and you want atart apple for cooking, and you don't
want. Have you noticed thatthe apples in the store now are the
(19:39):
size of grapefruits. They'reenormous. And all that means is that
there's less fruit flavor andmore water in them. So that's just
going to be a watery pie.Those big jumbo apples. I also don't
understand. With the applesthey've developed, you go into the
grocery store, they all haveporn star names. Envy, Jazz, honeycrisp.
(20:01):
What is this? These are notreal apples.
Corn apples. That's it.
I love it. It's true. She'sright in the world.
I know those are apples we'renot baking pie with.
I hope not. The other thingabout, gosh, just going into the
store and seeing the quality,I should say the lack of quality
(20:22):
of produce is justunbelievable. So when you purchase
things for your pies, do yougo to a farmer's market? Do you go
just to the regular grocerystore? And like, when you're looking
for apples, are you lookingfor smaller apples? Are you looking
for those that are ripe orsemi ripe or not so ripe because
of the tartness? What are youlooking for?
(20:43):
The apples that I really likefor pie are. Jonathan and Macintosh
are very good, but they're alittle harder to find. And then it
really goes down from there.Now, some of the farmers markets
in August and September willhave some good apples. Size is usually
a big indicator. Go forsmaller apples because that means
(21:04):
a less. Less water content,and that's going to give you a better
pie.
Okay. Picked right off thetree or let them sit for a while
or.
Apples usually will store verywell, but they need to be stored
in refrigeration to storewell. But we want to. The apples
are usually harvested August,September, and then if we want to
eat them in December, you haveto store them.
(21:24):
Okay.
Ay, ay, ay.
I've got a whole lot more questions.
Do you?
We're going to take a littlebreak here. We're talking to Ann
Carpenter. She is the authorof youf Had Me at Pie. This is Arnold
Stricker with Mark Langston.We'll be right back. This is Arnold
(21:46):
Stricker of St. Louis in tuneon behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage
Foundation. In 1857, the DredScott decision was a major legal
event and catalyst thatcontributed to the Civil War. The
decision declared that DredScott could not be free because he
was not a citizen. The 14thAmendment, also called the Dred Scott
Amendment, granted citizenshipto all born or naturalized here in
(22:06):
our country and was intendedto overturn the US Supreme Court
decision on July 9, 1868. TheDred Scott Heritage foundation is
requesting a commemorativestamp to be issued from the US Postal
Service to recognize andremember the heritage of this amendment
by issuing a stamp with thelikeness of the man Dred Scott. But
we need your support and thesupport of thousands of people who
(22:27):
would like to see this happen.To achieve this goal, we ask you
to download, sign and sharethe one page petition with others.
To find the petition, pleasego to dredscottlives.org and click
on the Dred Scott PetitionDrive on the right side of the page.
On behalf of the Dred ScottHeritage foundation, this has been
Arnold Stricker of St. Louisin Tune.
(22:47):
At St. Louis in Tune, westrive to bring you informative,
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We cover a wide range oftopics such as the arts, crime, education,
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(23:09):
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(23:31):
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(23:54):
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is stlintune.com visit ustoday. That's stlintune.com.
(24:27):
Welcome back to St. Louis intune. This is Arnold Stricker with
Mark Langston. We're talkingto Ann Carpenter about her book you
Had Me at Pie, and she's beenteaching cooking classes on how to
make pie for more than 30years. And that is done at the Kitchen
Conservatory on ManchesterRoad. I am reading here every year
on the day beforeThanksgiving, she guides two dozen
(24:48):
people in making their holidaypies of pumpkin, apple and pecan.
Or pecan depending upon whatpart of the country you're from.
Yeah, she grew up makinghomemade pie dough for apple and
blueberry pies. I loveblueberry pie. Oh, then as an adult,
she discovered cherry pie. Ilove cherry pies too. With the cherries
from her backyard trees, shealways chooses pie over cake. For
(25:08):
dessert, black raspberry pieis really good too. If you can find
black raspberries, you.
Can find black raspberries atsome of the farmers markets. But
the challenge with raspberriesin a pie is they're very wet. So
raspberries and strawberries,when you just cook them up, you have
like soup. And so I think ifyou're going to do a. If you're going
(25:30):
to use any kind of raspberryin a pie, you need to mix it with
another fruit because youwon't have any substance for your
filling.
Now, I was reading you maybedo two of these methods, but maybe
you do both. You drain andthen cook down the juice, and then
you also add something to thejuice or the jus to thicken it.
(25:50):
A fruit pie is fruit andsugar. But if you cook fruit and
sugar, you have sauce, it'swet, and if it's wet, it's just.
It's very hard to eat with afork. So what you want to do for
apple and cherry, what I do isI sugar the fruit, let it sit, and
then for a couple of hours,and then I use a sieve to separate
(26:11):
the juice from the fruit. Itake that juice, which can be a couple
of cups. When you draw out thewater from the fruit, you can have
a lot of liquid. I then boilthat down and make a syrup that goes
back into the filling. So Iconcentrate the flavor of the fruit
and I get rid of all thatexcess water. Even you need to have
(26:31):
a thickener in your piefilling. And grandma always used
flour, but flour is a verypoor thickener and flour is very
pasty. So I prefer using astarch. Cornstarch is fine, but my
favorite is potato starchbecause I find with cornstarch you
can always taste that it hascornstarch in it. Potato starch is
(26:54):
a very neutral flavor. And youjust taste the fruit. It's fruit
forward pie. And you don'trealize that there's starch in potato
starch used to be much harderto find, but with the rise of the
gluten free diets, it's in allthe grocery stores now.
What about seeing some peoplehave used gelatin to thicken that
(27:14):
stuff?
You usually don't use gelatinin a pie because gelatin is firm
when it's cold.
Okay. Oh, there you go.
So sometimes you'll usegelatin in an icebox pie, but if
it's a fruit pie. The gelatinisn't going to help you because you
serve that at warmer roomtemperature and that's still going
to be liquid.
They're going to be gooey.Now, as I'm thinking about people
(27:36):
listening to the show andmaybe they've experimented with pies
and they think it's a littletoo difficult. What are the basic
kinds of tools that they needto accomplish a successful pie?
You do need a rolling pin toroll out the dough in order. I like
to use a pastry blender inorder to cut the fat into the flour.
(28:00):
And then a tool that I thinkneeds to be in every kitchen is called
a bench knife. It's a littleblock of stainless steel, a square
of stainless steel. And thathelps you move the dough around on
the board, make sure it's notsticking underneath, and helps you
to get orient the dough intothe pie plate. And then I do use
(28:20):
a rolling mat, a littlesilicone mat, because that keeps
my countertop clean. And italso is flexible for me to roll out
the dough without it stickingtoo badly.
Now there's. People don't cookanymore. It seems like they don't
bake anymore. They'veforgotten how to do that stuff. That's
why they buy all this stuff.But go and go into the real detail
(28:43):
because you know it's. Andfolks, you need to go to the classes
because that's the ultimate.Because then you get the hands on.
You see the equipment, if youlike the equipment. Like I don't
have that. You can buy that atkitchen conservatory. But go through.
Because you need to put flourdown on the mat. You need to put
flour on your rolling pin. Doall these things.
I like to flour the dough. Idon't flour the pin. But that's interesting.
(29:05):
That's just my technique onthat. But I think it's true that
a lot of people don't cook.But I think there is a hunger and
a desire for those smells andbaking in the home kitchen. And we
saw that post Covid with therise of sourdough bread and notice
(29:27):
my pun.
But I was gonna say, how isthat getting by us?
But so there are a lot ofpeople who are getting very into
some of these specializedbaking arts and mastering them in
their own kitchen. Because thepleasure is the smell, the taste,
the I did this. This is myproduct from my own hand. And anything
(29:50):
you bake in your own kitchenis going to be better than anything
you buy.
Yes. Now let's talk aboutflour. What kind of flour should
we buy? Gold Medal everydayflour, or I know there's King Arthur
flour. There's a lot of bunchof different kinds of flour.
I use all purpose flour in mypie dough, and I think you can use
any brand.
(30:11):
Okay. All right.
That's good.
You heard it from the sourcethere, right? All right. And your
favorite pie is what, Anne?
Cherry.
Ooh, I'm with you. I likecherry. A good cherry pie.
A nice scoop of vanilla beanice cream on top.
It's very important. The typeof cherries that you use for cherry
pie, you want to use what'scalled pie cherries or Montmorency,
(30:35):
and they're small and tart. Soyou can't make a cherry pie with
bing cherry. They don't havethe right texture or taste for a
pie. This goes back to theapple conversation. The fruit you
eat is not the same as thefruit you bake with.
Right.
You want to have. You want tohave something tartar and with a
bigger punch to it.
Do you get frozen? Do you buyfresh? And then you have to pit them
(30:58):
and everything like that.
So there's the challenge withcherries. As you mentioned, I have
a cherry tree in myMontmorency cherry tree in my backyard,
which means I have to get outthe ladder. I got to climb up, I
got to pick the cherries. Ithen have to. To pit the cherries
and to prepare them forprocessing for the pie. Or at the
end of July, you can get inyour car, you can drive nine hours
(31:21):
to Door County, Wisconsin, andyou buy the cherries. Not only picked,
they're pitted. And then youdrive back, and then you have cherry.
You know, I get a couplehundred pounds of cherries, and I
figure one or two cherry piesa week is about the right amount.
And you freeze. Can you freeze them?
Yeah, they freeze very well.Some fruit freeze very well. Blueberries,
(31:43):
blackberries, cherries, theyall freeze very well. The only caveat
I give. If you've got frozenfruit that you're going to put in
a pie, you must defrost thefruit completely before making your
pie, because what a freezerdoes is that it breaks up the cells
in the fruit, just like thefreeze will freeze your pipes in
(32:03):
your house. So what happens isall the cells burst out with the
water. You get this big puddleof liquid. You don't want to put
that big puddle of liquid inyour pie.
No doubt.
Wow. My head's spinning. Thisis all good stuff.
It really is. And I can'tbelieve that. I can believe because
(32:23):
it's a great time to do itright before Thanksgiving in teaching
people. But how often do youdo these classes on pie making?
We have pie classes regularlybecause there's a desire for pie.
But there's no question theday before. Thanks. Thanksgiving.
I call it our pie day becausewe did this year. We did 75 pies
that day.
Wow. Now do. This is going tobe. All right, here's a curveball.
(32:47):
Do you have a pie class on PI day?
We have. We have. Of course. Iunderstand that's now been renamed
St. Louis Day.
That's true. Yeah. 314 day.
But when we do it on pie day,we try to do a savory pie. It's not
just the dessert pies. But doa meat pie or a.
A meat pie. What is mincemeat pie?
(33:07):
Mincemeat is a. Is driedfruits and candied rind all cooked
together. And then. And they.The reason why they you. There are
some old fashioned versionsthat will have meat in it, but usually
it's the beef fat that's inthere. And that fat. Beef fat's a
(33:27):
great flavor.
Oh yeah.
Just like pork fat is a greatflavor. So it's. The fruit is cooked
in this fat and you cook itall up and can it and then it's available
for when you just dump it intoa pie shell and make a pie out of
it. But it's. It's actually Idon't have a mincemeat pie recipe
in this book, but I havesomething that's a little similar.
(33:48):
It's the raisin pie. So if youlook at my raisin pie recipe that
has a lot of the same kinds offruits that are in mincemeat pie.
I remember growing up, ofcourse they were Mrs. Smiths. My
mom never made the pies. Andthis mince meat pie, the most disgusting
(34:09):
thing that it's like eating a fruitcake.
My dad liked mincemeat pie. Iwas sitting here just thinking about
that. It's rough. I nevercould do it.
No, I couldn't either. Well,very interesting.
What's. I think it's becauseyou got fixated on the word meat
and you weren't actuallythinking. You didn't know what the
(34:31):
ingredients were. So I think.Do you like raisins?
Oh, I love raisins.
Okay, so if I said raisin pie,does that sound more enticing?
I'd probably try that. Yeah.
So you got it. Raisin applepie. That's a lot of what mincemeat
pie is. It just has a lot ofthem in. And fruitcake Then we have
to talk fruitcake. I bet Icould make you a fruitcake where
you're like, oh, yeah, thisis. After all, what's. Fruitcake
(34:53):
is just a vehicle for brandyand rum.
That's true. And to pass itaround from year to year because
nobody wants to eat it. It'sregifted for several days, adding
more rum. Yeah.
Wow.
The other nice thing aboutthat you've done here in the book
is you give these tips onvariety of pages. But I'm going to
(35:19):
talk about the tip for theFresh Concord grape pie. Fresh Concord
grapes are available only inAugust and September. Each grape
needs to be squeezed to removethe seeds. But this pie is worth
the effort once a year. Youcould do this by calendar and schedule
when the fruit is in season.
You don't want to eat a peachpie. Not in the summer.
(35:39):
No.
It's only July and August thatwe're eating peach pieces.
That's right. And I like whitepeach pie.
Okay.
Versus yellow peach.
That's different.
Yeah, it is a little different flavor.
This is a weird question. Whatabout pot pies? Do you do those at
all?
Oh, yes. Pot pies are usuallymeat based. So we're back to the
meat here. But you have achicken pot pie or any steak and
(36:03):
kidney pie, as the Britishalways like to do. But it's just.
You have a. In a pot pie, youthen have your. Really your soup
in the bowl and then you topit with a pie crust and bake and
eat it. The. The other versionof that is pasty, where it's a turnover
and the pasties are filledwith meat and vegetables.
Calzone. Similar.
(36:23):
It is like a calzone, exceptit comes from Wales.
Okay. Wow.
Wow. I love pot pies. Chickenpot pie.
Yeah.
When we have to qualify thisor for those people who think there's
hashish in it, but it's.There's. There's. There's no pot
in this.
I'm so sorry about.
There's no pot in a pot pie.
(36:44):
But we have a class calledHigh on Pot Pies, so there you go.
Now you're confused.
You have to play with it. Andthey have catchy titles at Kitchen
Conservatory.
We like to have fun with our food.
They really do. They reallydo. We've taken several classes there.
It's a lot of fun. Mark, youneed to go there with Maria.
(37:05):
I'm going to. I'm thinkingabout this afternoon over there.
The most challenging pie thatyou've ever had to make. What is
that?
I think people usually findmeringue pies to be the most challenging.
Why is that?
Well, if you think about yourgrandma's recipe for a lemon meringue
pie, or if you ever had one ofthose, sometimes, and it's first
(37:25):
you have to bake the piecrust. We bake it blind because the
blame blind. Blind baking iswhen you put a cold filling into
a pie. And so you need to haveyour crust fully baked before you
put your filling in. So whenyou. And if you just put the dough
in the pie plate and stick itin the oven, the sides will fold
down and the bottom will popup. So you don't have a cavity. So
(37:48):
you need to line. You lay yourpie dough in your pie plate. You
line it with aluminum foil andfill it with pie weights, which then
will keep the shape of thecavity. You bake it until the pastry
is baked. You take it out, youtake out your pie weight, and then
you can fill it with yourfilling. Sometimes people have lemon
meringue pies where the lemonfilling didn't sit up, but they don't
(38:11):
realize that till they cutinto it because they've put the meringue
on it. You put your meringueon it back in the oven. It's a complicated
step to make a lemon meringuepie. So I actually, instead of my
lemon meringue filling is alemon curd, which is much easier
to make. It's a stovetoplemon, where it's lemon, butter,
(38:31):
sugar, eggs, and you cook ittill it comes to a boil, and then.
And then you can put that inyour pie filling. And that's always
firm when it's cold.Interesting, because the butter keeps
it cold. Firm, I should say.Cold butter will keep it firm.
Butter again.
Yes. You notice a theme herewith dessert. We like our butter.
Stick of butter.
The stick of butter.
(38:52):
I'm the stick of butter guy.
And people who maybe theystart this and they throw it away,
you talk about somethingthat's a real simple one to start
out with.
So if you think pie is toodaunting, I recommend cobbler and
cobbler crisp. All those whereyou have a fruit bottom, it's just
(39:13):
in a 9 by 13. It's not in afancy pie plate. You can do it in
anything. And then it has atopping on it. And there are lots
of different versions oftoppings for fruit, for baked fruit
things some people do oatmealor brown sugar, all kinds of things
like that. But my favoritetopping of all, and the easiest one
to make, it's just. You can doit blindfolded you can do it with
(39:36):
any fruit you have. It's aone, one, one. Everybody can remember
it. It's one cup of butter,one cup of sugar, one egg, one cup
of flour, a little bit ofbaking powder. Spread it on and it's.
Everybody says it's the mostdelicious cobbler they've ever had.
There you go. And you put thegoo in your nine by 12 or whatever.
(39:56):
Or your nine by 12.
Well, you have the fruit onthe bottom mixed up with a little
sugar, and then you put yourtopping on, and then you bake it
for 45.
Minutes at what, 375?
Yeah, that's fine. And thetopping spreads and some of those
more complicated ones, they'llhave you do a rolled biscuit topping
topping. This just. Yeah, thisis just real simple.
Mark's writing all this stuff down.
I am.
(40:17):
Mark. The cookbook isavailable at Kitchen conservatory
for a year. 15 dol.
He has one. He just didn'tbring it today.
I don't. Do I?
Yeah.
Oh. Oh, I do, actually. Yes, I do.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay. Is chocolate andbananas. I'm looking at the chocolate
custard and banana cream piebananas. Do you want to use the bananas
(40:41):
when they're really ripe, whenthey're a little green, when they're
a little harder and a littlesofter? When do you want to use them?
I think that's a matter ofpersonal preference. Some people
like their bananas firm, andsome people like their bananas mushy.
And I find they don't agree onthat issue. You either go one way
or the other. I remember agrocery guy told me once that the
(41:01):
bananas cause the single mostsource of complaints in the grocery
store. Too green, too ripe.People like their bananas just the
way they like their bananas.
Of course, if they get themgreen and they'll ripen up.
Haven't you ever heard, younever buy green bananas if you think
you're not going to make it.
(41:22):
What kind of chocolate shouldbe used?
Delicious chocolate. Chocolateyou want to eat chocolate you think
tastes delicious.
So versus baking chocolate ormilk chocolate or dark chocolate
or 70% or 60%.
I like a dark bittersweetchocolate. But not everybody likes
that. So you use the chocolateyou like.
Okay. Okay.
(41:43):
Makes sense to me.
It makes sense to me.
Oh, yeah, this is wonderful.
Is there a difference in usinga. Like a pie tin versus using, like,
a glass pie plate or a ceramicpie plate as far as baking thyme
and how the crust develops?
(42:04):
Usually pie is served in thedish it's baked in. So people like
to use A dish that is prettyso they can take it to the table
and show it off. And the metalpie plates are not as pretty for
showing off your pie. But interms of baking, I do the ceramic
because I think you get acrisper bottom crust. Nobody likes
(42:27):
a soggy bottom. So the whole.One of the tricks in making a good
pie is not to have a soggybottom. And some of the tricks on
that are, A, make sure youroven's hot. Bake the pie at 375 degrees.
B, when the pie dough, whenthe pie goes into the oven, it's
cold because cold dough plushot oven equals flaky pastry. So
(42:51):
you don't want your pie doughto just sit out on the countertop
and warm up. Because as thepie, as the dough warms up, it's
then going to start to absorbthe liquid filling and then that's
going to make the bottom crustsoggy. So you want to put in your.
And you don't want to pour ahot filling into the pie dough. So
you put your filling into thepie dough, put the top crust on,
(43:12):
run it in the oven as quicklyas possible, and then that'll get
you a better bottom crust.
Couple things. Do you, halfwaythrough, do you turn?
I've never found that necessary.
Okay. Okay.
But ovens vary. Some ovensdefinitely have hot spots.
How about cutting into the top?
That's an old wives tale.
Old wives tale. Interesting.
No ness. No need for that.
(43:33):
Don't need to put that littlepie bird. Pie bird in there either.
Boy, that's such a fraud.
Let us know what you thinkabout that, Anne. Wow, that's interesting.
It is.
There's no point to it.
Who knew?
Yeah, because he's like torelease, but.
It doesn't actually workbecause the bottom of the bird just
(43:55):
gets. Gets clogged up withdough and there's no. The steam never
goes through that to release it.
Interesting.
Steam's good.
Steam is good.
Yeah.
Wow. Okay.
Is there much in there aboutcobblers though? We used to make
cobblers on camping trips.We'd take cast iron pots and we'd
put a bunch of coals on thetop of it and we would make peach
(44:17):
cobblers. And they would bethe best things in the world.
Sure. Because you're outcamping, everything tastes delicious
because you're starving.
That's a good point. That'sfor sure.
But I have one cobbler recipein it in the chapter called Not Pie
and it's the best cobblerrecipe. And I promise you that once
you take this cobbler recipe,you'll never go back to any other
cobbler recipe.
Oh, okay. I'm going to take alook at that.
(44:38):
She's got apple brown Bettyhere, too. Breadcrumbs and butter,
cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves,lemon, sugar, salt. Is that similar
to a fruit goblin?
Well, a brown Betty is an oldfashioned thing. And if you have
some really yummy bread likebrioche, and you grind that up and
then you mix it with morebutter and then you sprinkle that
(45:00):
on top of your fruit, it canmake a really nice crust.
Brioche bread. The way to go.Brioche bun for a hamburger.
Yeah. So brioche is thefattiest of all the bread. It's full
of egg yolks and butter.That's what makes it so good. So
when Marie Antoinette said,let them eat cake, the word she used
(45:20):
in French was brioche.
Brioche, yeah. Let them eat pastry.
Okay. I'm fine with that.
Oh, my. So what's on thedocket? You have another pie book?
Pie two. You had me at pie two.
I really think that I coveredthe basics of pie. You can substitute
other fruits from the ones.For example, this book doesn't have
(45:42):
a recipe for strawberryrhubarb, but you can use the generic
fruit pie filling and justsubstitute different fruits and make
up strawberry rhubarb or anapricot or nectarine pie. You can
always make plenty ofvariations along that. I mean, I
don't have a key lime in here,but if you do, if you make the lemon
meringue with lime zest andlime juice instead, I'd call that
(46:05):
a key lime pie. So I don'tthink we need book two. However,
the folks at Reedy Pressedhave told me they do want another
book from me. And what we'regoing to do is soup.
Ooh, ooh.
Chowder, bisque, gumbo, creamof soups.
(46:26):
Yeah.
Gazpacho, vichysoise. Yeah.
Made some turkey noodle soup.
Good.
From the carcass the other day.
Did you now had that fordinner last night. Wow.
So I have techniques on that.
Yeah.
Yeah. And one of the besttechniques you should do with your
carcass when you make yourturkey soup is you need to cut up
(46:47):
the carcass. Did you cut itup, Arnold?
I was pretty. We hadspatchcocked it and so it was pretty
much destroyed.
Well, no. See, it's reallywhat makes you a better bone broth,
because that's what you'redoing is you're making a Bone broth
is you need to expose themarrow in the bone. So it's very
important.
Chop it up.
That the backbone inparticular gets. Gets cut up because
(47:08):
then your stock is so muchmore flavorful.
Yeah. And I had spatchcockedit, so the backbone was gone.
Oh, the backbone is the bestbone for making stock, truly.
There we went.
I have a different method ofspatchcocking. I don't cut out the
backbone. I leave the backbonein because then the bone supports
the meat. It gives you. Itdoesn't fall apart.
It keeps it up off the.
(47:30):
Yeah. It's like. It gives youa rack that your meat is on. It's
also very good if you're goingto grill it is to leave the backbone
on. But what I do is I cut therib cage from the wing to the thigh
bone, and then I'm able toflatten it that way, and the backbone
stays. So that's my. I have aYouTube video on how to. I call it
leaping frog chicken becauseit looks like a leaping frog.
(47:53):
I have to look at that.
Let's go to her house.
You know what scrapcocking is,right? You take the back out, and
then you actually.
But you're flattening it.
You're taking.
You're taking a round bird,and you're making it flat. And it
comes from dispatching the cuck.
Say, hey, I never knew.
(48:14):
I didn't. That's why you haveto listen to this show, folks.
Who knew?
How many new things have welearned today?
Oh, I'm running out of notesor areas to put notes on. I know
this has been really fun.
This has been great. And Iwant you to come back when you get
that soup book done.
Certainly.
And bring samples. You can'thave her back without samples. We'll
(48:34):
set up a little table over here.
We don't have the kitchen setup to do.
We'll figure it out. We'llfind a place.
This has been fun. It's agreat book, folks. You had me at
PI. It's by Ann Carpenter. Youcan get this at Reedy Press. This
is a great book for theupcoming holidays. And. And it will
help you in making pies.Husbands. Maybe you want to get this
(48:58):
for your wife or your daughteror yourself.
Stocking stuffer.
Yeah. Great. Stocking stuffer.It will roll up and fit in there.
And you need to try some ofthese out. And I'm encouraging everybody
to do this because it's justnot the ladies that should be making
pies. There's a lot of a Lotof men in your class.
So in the introduction, I tellthe story of student of mine who
(49:21):
was a retired corporateexecutive, and he decided that he
was going to take on piebaking as his extracurricular activity
in retirement. And he masteredthe art of making pies. And he does
what he calls comfort pie.Somebody's back from the hospital,
somebody's bereaved. He makesa pie and brings them a comfort pie.
(49:42):
And at last count, when hetold me he'd now done 80 of them.
Wow, that's great.
Much better than a bouquet offlowers is to get a comfort pie.
And do you have a favorite pie?
Cherry.
Oh, that's right. I beg yourpardon. I forgot.
Cherry.
Cherry pie. Which One of myfavorites, too? And just. This is.
(50:04):
And. And having pie forbreakfast. I've done that.
Do it all the time.
I've done that.
Yeah. If we have pie aroundour house, it is my go to breakfast.
There's no question about it.
Yeah.
Eggs, fruit.
It's got all the food groupsin it, the important food groups.
I'll tell you right now.
And if you have the rightvegetables in there.
(50:25):
Squashed.
Yeah, there you go.
Nuts.
Yeah.
I'm looking forward to thesoup book.
Yeah, I am, too.
Soup is good.
Now, this kind of goes. Oh, Ineed to do our word of the. Because
it relates to what we'retalking about here. Our word of the
day is Saturn 9. S A, T, U, R,N, I, N, E. It means bitter or scornful,
(50:49):
showing a brooding ill humor.
Wait, wait, wait. That is thewrong word for after our talk about
delicious pie. Why are youbringing us down?
His saturnine attitude left me depressed.
Pie is about making peoplehappy. Pie is about comfort. Can
(51:10):
you please come up with the opposite?
Okay.
Because this is the wrong wordfor us today.
I've got one. If someone callsyou fat because you've been eating
some wonderful pie, justignore them. You're bigger than that.
Okay, okay.
(51:30):
How was that one?
Marginally better.
Marginally. Okay, I like that one.
That's a good one. Let's see here.
That is funny.
As a kid, I used to watch thewizard of Oz and wonder how someone
could talk if they didn't havea brain. Then I got social media.
(51:51):
Okay.
Let'S see here. Ooh, there's arecipe for pastrami Reuben. Okay.
Every time I try to eathealthy, along comes Thanksgiving,
Christmas, summer, Friday, orWednesday, and it ruins it for me.
Remember what I started offwith. Your mental health is just
(52:11):
as important as your physicalhealth. Eat delicious food. You will
be mentally healthy.
There you go. There you are.
I think that's. That's it.
We need to close on thosewords. Mental health. For your mental
health. Eat this pie.
Yes.
All right, man. Thanks forcoming in today.
It was my pleasure.
Wow.
Mark had a lot of fun.
(52:33):
Gotta crank up that oven. Getyour supplies, folks. Don't forget
to go to kitchen conservatoryand catch some of these classes.
Make your house smell better.
Yeah, that's exactly right.That's exactly right. Wow. Folks,
that's all for this hour. Wethank you for listening. If you've
enjoyed this episode and yoursalivating, salivatory or salivating
(52:55):
glands are really going, youcan listen to additional shows@stintune.com
consider leaving a review onApple Podcast, Podchaser, or your
preferred podcast platform.Your feedback helps us reach more
listeners and continue togrow. I want to thank Bob Berthesel
for our theme music, ourguest, Ann Carpenter, and co host
Mark Langston. We thank youfor being a part of our community
of curious mind. St. Louis intune is a production of Motifs Media
(53:17):
Group and the US RadioNetwork. Remember to keep seeking,
keep learning, walk worthy,and let your light shine. For St.
Louis in Tune, I'm ArnoldStricker, SA.
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