Pie Day (real pie - not pi, you nerds)

Let's talk about PIE.

PIE - the most American of desserts. Buttery crust filled with whatever your little heart desires. UP and the rest of our gang like to celebrate America and summer by having an annual pie day where we bake numerous pies from scratch. You can all google a pie recipe if you don't have your own, I'm not here to post my secrets for anything, mainly because, I don't have any. (If you're wondering - Mark Bittman's recipes from How to Cook Everything are a safe bet.)

But let's talk about all the goodness that comes from an annual pie day.

1) If you went to college and graduated several years ago, you probably don't have many friends that live in the same city as you now! This is a good opportunity to actually make plans and keep them, at least with friends that are in a reasonable driving distance. We plan to "Google Hangout" with our friends on the other side of the country. Spending the day with your friends who you don't see very often (texting doesn't count!) - what could be better than that?

2) Developing baking skills. Baking can be a little bit of trial and error. The more you read about pie and especially pie crust, you realize that everyone has an opinion and it may not always be right. Things from the past we have learned about crust: too much water in the dough is bad, fake butter is bad, keep the butter cold, and my friends are not willing to try lard. Things we are going to experiment with on our upcoming Pie Day: coconut oil + butter crust and using a food processor instead of our hands.

As far as filling goes, you can't really go wrong with berries, just be aware that not everyone enjoys cinnamon in their blueberry pie. Other acceptable fruits: rhubarb, apple, peach, mango (what, I'm Asian!). Pro tip - put your pie pans on a baking sheet, because your pie with bubble over and create a giant mess. We are possibly going to branch out of fruit pies someday with either key lime and/or chocolate pie (I know that lime is a fruit, but I think we can agree that key lime pie is not a fruit pie). I'm not sure we're willing to take the leap though.

3) um, PIE. After spending an awesome day making pie with your awesome friends - you get pie! And it will probably be delicious, even if it looks like shit and the filling is runny because you're too impatient to wait for it to cool. And the ingredients are pretty cheap, so you'll probably have 4+ pies to share, which means leftovers! If you're (un)lucky like me, your significant other doesn't really like sweets so you'll have pie for yourself the over the course of the next week. Recommended accompaniments - vanilla ice cream. Whipped cream is only for pumpkin pie.

SO - are you ready to arrange your own Pie Day yet?

Cupcakes are shit.
(jk we love cupcakes too)

-HC