I Come Bearing Pie

*Creeps out from around the corner.*

“Are you mad?”

Seriously… I’m sorry for disappearing like that. I wish I could warn you before the storm comes, but I never seem to know until suddenly, I look at my poor little blog and realize it’s been two weeks and you haven’t had a word from me. So I’m sorry… can you forgive me?

…

I brought pie…

And not only pie: it’s one of the very best pies I’ve ever tried. And that’s saying a lot coming from someone who, like me, loves pie. It was, perhaps, made even better thanks to the peaches from the marchande de pêches here in Paziols–peaches so life-changing that I’ve had to hide them under the counter to keep eager kids (and counselors) from devouring them instead of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Still, I feel confident in saying that this pie–with or without marchande de pêche peaches–is possibly in the top three pies I’ve ever had in my life. Do you forgive me now?

What if I told you that I haven’t even left the kitchen in what feels like days? The new running joke here in Paziols is how strange it is to see me without an apron tied around my waist. When I spend too much time in another room of the house or–God forbid–out of doors, people start to ask me if I’m feeling all right. It’s not exaggeration: when you’ve got as many kids (19) who eat as much as these ones do, it’s a wonder I leave the kitchen to go to bed.

Paziols in years past was marked by trips to different sites around the area: I’ve visited the Cathar chateaux of Aguilar and Queribus at least ten times apiece, the musée de la Préhistoire in Tautavel even more. When I first realized I would be missing these outings in favor of more time in front of the stove, I have to admit that I wasn’t all that fussed: you can only climb a crumbling castle a certain number of times before the allure wears off and your patience with small children wandering too close to the edge wears thin. Nevertheless, as I browse old photographs, I find myself missing some of the trips I used to take.

Luckily, there have been new trips, some of which even I have been a part of, like a recent outing to Rennes-le-Chateau, a small town about an hour away from Paziols named for the small chateau that gave the town its story and claim to fame.

Legend has it that a priest who came to work at the parish in this village, Bérenger Saunière, found a buried treasure somewhere inside the small church, permitting him to completely rebuild it. Whether the treasure was a gift from the devil or simply a myth remains to be determined, but as it is now, the legend leaves many questions unanswered, and especially after the publication of books like The DaVinci Code a few years back, the popularity of the small town has grown.

As is often my M.O., I raced through the museum to pop out on the other side, where I could wander the garden peacefully. Saunière constructed not only the small church, but also a series of buildings, including a house and a tower that offers an astounding view of the valley below.

I took advantage of everything–the flowers, the view. Everything was an excuse for a picture, and as I snapped away, I laughed to myself about the observation that the Country Boy had made a few days earlier: as he scrolled through the pictures on my digital camera, he commented that 90% of them were of food.

While the pie pictures leave something to be desired (for this I apologize: but I was otherwise occupied with salad collection after a particularly violent gust of Tramontagne wind, and by the time I got the chance to take a picture, the sun had set), the accusations are true: the majority of my pictures now are of different dishes I make, sometimes ten or twenty pictures of each dish so that I can select the best ones. If it weren’t for this blog, there’s a good chance that I would never have bought a new camera when the old one broke, but as it is, I have one, and when greeted with the opportunity, whether the subject in question be a particularly lovely peach pie or a particularly lovely garden, I’m happy to have the time and the opportunity to capture it on film so that, when I’m back to hovering over my stove or sweeping shards off the floor after yet another glass has slipped from over-eager hands (current count: six), I can remember days like this, when my biggest concern was the angle for a picture of a flower.

Peach and Crème Fraîche Pie (Recipe from Smitten Kitchen)

1/2 recipe All-Butter, Really Flaky Pie Dough, chilled for at least an hour in the fridge

Streusel
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
3 to 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cold (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Filling
1 1/2 pounds ripe (4 to 5 medium) yellow peaches, pitted and quartered
2 to 4 tablespoons granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
5 tablespoons crème fraîche

Prepare pie dough: Roll out pie dough to about 1/8-inch thick and fit into a regular (not deep dish) pie plate, 9 1/2 to 10 inches in diameter. Trim edge to 1/2 inch; fold under and crimp as desired. Pierce bottom of dough all over with a fork. Transfer to freezer for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 400°F right before you take it out.

Make streusel: Stir confectioners’ sugar, baking powder, salt and three tablespoons flour together in a small bowl. Add bits of cold butter, and either using a fork, pastry blender or your fingertips, work them into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add additional flour as needed; I needed to almost double it to get the mixture crumbly, but my kitchen is excessively warm and the butter wanted to melt. Set aside.

Par-bake crust: Tightly press a piece of aluminum foil against frozen pie crust. From here, you ought to fill the shell with pie weights or dried beans, or you can wing it like certainly lazy people we know, hoping the foil will be enough to keep the crust shape in place. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove carefully remove foil and any weights you have used, press any bubbled-up spots in with the back of a spoon, and return the crust to the oven for another 5 to 8 minutes, or until it is lightly golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

[P.S. If you’re not overly-concerned about “soggy bottoms” (in the words of Julia Child) you can save time by skipping the par-baking step. Given the light nature of the filling, odds are good that it would not become excessively damp even without the parbake.]

Make the filling: Sprinkle quartered peaches with sugar and salt. Let sit for 10 minutes. Spread two tablespoons crème fraîche in bottom of par-baked pie shell, sprinkle with one-third of the streusel and fan the peach quarters decoratively on top. Dot the remaining three tablespoons of crème fraîche on the peaches and sprinkle with remaining streusel.

Bake the pie: Until the crème fraîche is bubble and the streusel is golden brown, about 50 minutes. Cover edge of crust with a strip of foil if it browns too quickly. Let cool on a wire rack at least 15 minutes before serving.