Thanksgiving Part I: Apple Pie—at Last!

Homemade desserts at the Thanksgiving table have a way of lighting up the room with their presence. Pies, especially, are like the candelabras of the soul. And with that said, I've finally found an apple pie recipe that I can wax rhapsodic about. It's a recipe I found in the Thanksgiving issue of Food & Wine, co-edited by Michael Symon and featuring an article with REM. Boy, I'd love to eat caramelized brussels sprouts in a beautiful rustic outdoor setting with Michael Stipe and Co. For a future issue, Food & Wine should do a Tea Time with Morrissey.

Back to Thanksgiving 2011. Here, without further ado, is a photo of the finished pie:

It's a little charred around the edges, I admit. I'm going to have to look into how to prevent that from happening. It can probably be prevented by covering the pie with aluminum foil until the last 15 minutes or so of baking. Oh well, maybe next time. What I loved about this pie is that the filling actually filled the pie! So, individual slices looked great on the plate. Also, the black edges didn't affect the flavor. To my great relief and extreme delight, it tasted like real apple pie, nothing more, nothing less.

I should also mention that I used different apples than what is recommended—the recipe calls for Pink Lady, Golden Delicious, Cortland or Jonathan but I used Granny Smith apples because they looked so bright green and pretty that I couldn't resist buying them. Each one looked just like this:

Consequently, the pie tasted a little tart the first day and necessitated ice cream—as does life in general. On the following day, the pie tasted much sweeter and didn't need ice cream at all. In other words, the ice cream only made it better.