Just Apple Pie

I don't know anyone who has not eaten and loved apple pie. To me, apple pie isn't all about the flaky crust, and it isn't about inventive craft or the kinds of apples. It's mostly about the aroma of apple pie baking, the sight or memory of a special  someone peeling apples and rolling out the dough and the slipped in taste of  purloined slices of crisp apple. When I bake an apple pie, Gramma is behind me and Grampa is sitting at the oil cloth table with the Winnipeg  Free Press in the background, smiling over the top of it. Gramma, the red haired pioneer one, from Saskatchewan who immigrated in the early 1900's, didn't really care if  Johnny Appleseed invented apples or that apple pie is American: North or South. She didn't have time to speculate about such nonsense. In fact, the first apples are about as likely as the first Men who made ovens, and the first apple pie on record, was recorded in Jolly Old in the early thirteen hundreds. Or so Chaucer tells us. But today, while baking an apple pie, as always, I enjoy all the sensations and memories of what apple pie brings us. Apples are available all times of the year and making crust is as simple as a couple of cups of flour, a dash of salt, a little butter and shortening and a splash of cold water, a mix and push or two, and there's your crust. Make a ball of it to press into a pie plate bottom; I don't do a top crust, plop in the heap of apples that wait stirred up with a bit of sugar, melted butter and a grind of cinnamon. It's ready for the oven. I had a man friend once whose apple pie was named after him, and he measured everything to perfection. When I baked with him, it drove him silly to see me measure using my hands, and testing the dough by feel.The poor fella had to walk out of the kitchen. Sure, our pies were different, but I don't know a single apple pie creator whose home-made pie is the same as any other. Apple pie making also reminds me of a dear friend now gone, who did annual apple pie marathons. She was one of these cute little ladies full of energy. When there were too many apples in late fall, she would go out and get them free. For the next whole day, she made apple pies and baked them. They went into the freezer so that she could distribute them to her family and friends every time they came. There was never a cup of tea without an offer of apple pie and something on it. And what you put on it, determines its temporary character. Could be a slice of cheese, a dollop of whipped cream, a scoop of ice cream or just nice thick cream drizzled over the hot and steaming treat. I think my pie is about ready to take out of the oven. Excuse me please.