Balmy temps (50°F) have inspired me to open a window to air out the accumulated housitosis consisting of body odor, burnt onions, unvacuumed rugs, and the lingering stench of cheap perfume from the vet's attempt to clean out my cat's wax-filled ears. You would think ear cleaner manufacturers would go easy on perfume in a product meant for the delicate insides of a cat's ears. Like many cat products, the cleaning solution seems to be aimed to please human owners rather than the cats. In this case, massive fail. I'm allergic. It's been a minor hell of eye burning and throat irritation, and the cat hasn't been too happy about it either. Insult to injury, yesterday I reluctantly instigated a cat diet at the recommendation of the young, slender, perky, blonde newly minted veterinarian Dr. Danielle (daughter of the retired Dr. Brian).“Ideally, an adult cat should be no more than twelve pounds,” she said regretfully eyeing my cat's substantial sixteen-pound girth (and pointedly not looking at my own).
I've been working on my girth. I'm happy to say, despite my conflicting relationship with food, I've lost enough girth to fit into my old out-of-style Levis. Maybe there is a god. For sure it takes divine intervention to help me follow my food plan. My food plan is simple: vegetables, fruit, eggs, yogurt. And lots of coffee.
Last week I baked a pie. If you know anything about me, that statement should get your attention. I barely cook (if you call roasting vegetables cooking), let alone bake. I eat cooked things—everyday I inadvertently overcook my vegetables until they are gummy mush—but I don't eat baked things. I would if someone baked them for me. But baking is a fine art, as anyone who bakes will tell you. It's not one of those skills you pick up in the aisle at Walmart. Allegedly . . . I do not shop at Walmart so it could be that baking skills are one of many wonderful things you could pick up in a Walmart aisle.
Back to the pie. My mother loves cherry pie. Because I love my mother and feel it is my daughterly obligation and privilege to do things to make her happy and recognizing it has been almost two years since she's had a bite of cherry pie, I thought I would bake her a little cherry pie. How hard could it be?
Before I embarked on this foolhardy endeavor, I thought I had a pretty good chance of making something edible. I mean, I wasn't planning on making the filling from scratch. I'm not a total fool, after all. The stuff in the can would do just fine for her . . . all those chemicals, sugar, and red dyes, why, her system was built on that stuff. The main challenge, as I saw it, was the requirement to use gluten-free flour to make the crust.
When they say gluten-free, what they really mean is wheat-free. If you bake, you know that wheat is a common ingredient in baking. Flour substitutes involve grains like rice, corn, oats, millet . . . all great stuff, but maybe not that great for a pie crust? Ignorance is (sometimes) bliss: I was not to be deterred.
First, I went online and read everything I could find on making pie crust with non-wheat flour. There was some but not much agreement. Everyone had an opinion. I think it is a trait of bakers. In particular, I wanted to view videos of real people getting their hands dirty in dough. I could only find videos of bakers using wheat flour. Nevertheless, I studied their process and took copious notes.
Later that afternoon, I realized I was procrastinating. Fear does not bake pies. In accordance with my new year's philosophy regarding getting things done, I rolled up my sleeves, washed my hands, and got to work. Recipe for a nine-inch pie in hand, I cut the amounts in half to make a pie to fit into one of those dinky crinky aluminum pie tins that you can find at the store, comes in a stack of six tins with plastic covers, you know what I mean if you make pot pies to take to potlucks, which I never do, in case you wondered. Having little luck with food, I avoid pot lucks.
Pie dough consists of four ingredients: flour, salt, fat, water. Some people add a fifth, sugar. The fat can be butter, shortening, lard, or some type of oil. Mom can't have butter, and I don't stock shortening or lard in my kitchen, so olive oil was my only option. None of my online video sources told me how to handle non-wheat flour so I tried to emulate their advice for wheat flour pie crust as closely as I could. The trick to making flaky wheat pie dough is to mix the ingredients until the flour is in pea-sized nuggets but not tire it out with too much handling.
One thing I learned is that it takes a lot of water to moisten non-wheat flour to create a substance that you can flatten and form into something that resembles pie dough that can be pushed into a pie tin. In case you want to try gluten-free flour pie crust yourself, that is my observation based on my experience. Once the dough was moist enough, I was able to roll it out with my rarely used wooden rolling pin. However, looking back, I realize I didn't roll the dough thin enough. Do your best to roll it quite thin.
Second, after I poured the bright red gleaming cherry pie filling into the pie crust, I thought it probably would have been good to prebake the pie crust. Some wheat flour recipes called for prebaking the crust, some did not. In my eagerness to complete the task and check it off my list, I did not prebake the empty pie crust. I covered the pie filling with a top layer of pie crust (also not rolled thin enough). I haphazardly crimped what edges I could and trimmed the rest, took a photo, and shoved the tin into the oven.
I must say, it looked like a pie going into the oven, and after I took off the aluminum foil tent, it browned up pretty nicely. As I pulled it out of the oven, I was astounded and slightly unnerved at how heavy it was. The pie tin slid across the baking sheet, heading for the open oven. In the nick of time, my sharply honed reflexes managed to keep the sheet horizontal (pure luck). The pie did not fall into the oven or on the floor. Sometimes we mark victory by what didn't happen, right? After letting it cool for a bit, I placed the heavy little pie into a box, covered it with foil, and took it over to Mom's.
I wanted to show her the pie before we went out for a smoke, because I knew half her brain would be missing when we came back inside. I modestly explained what I had done and pulled the pie out of the box. I took off the foil cover with a flourish. Voila! She seemed mildly impressed. I could tell she was itching to get outside.
After we came in, she milled around in confusion as usual. I took one of her kitchen knives (not the sharpest knife, I feel I must say to preface my tale of what came next). My intention was to cut a small piece of pie and place it in a dish. However, the knife would not cut the pie crust. Sticking to my principle of modesty, I did not immediately blame the knife. Failure not being an option, I continued to saw into the pie crust. Eventually I broke through. The red filling came into view. I aimed the knife at the bottom crust. After considerable effort, I managed to poke, jam, saw, slice, and otherwise attack the bottom crust until at last, at last, I could free a little slice of pie for my mother.
I placed the wedge of pie in the dish. The crust stood valiantly upright as the filling dripped away and ran into the dish. Soon the crust stood alone in a sea of neon red cherry pie filling.
“Here you go!” I said proudly, handing my mother the dish and a fork.
She poked at the crust once or twice, gave up, and scooped some of the filling into her mouth. Finally, she picked the crust up with her fingers and used it like a cracker to scoop up filling, like how she might scoop up salsa with a tortilla chip if she didn't hate Mexican food so much.
The next day, Mom reported having a massive diarrhea blowout. There is no way to know if the little bit of pie she consumed was to blame, but she wasn't willing to try any more of it. Three days later, I took the pie home and dumped it in my compost bin.
