Piety

Autumn brings church-sponsored come-one-come-all suppers of chicken, ham, roast pork, pork sausage (at Catawissa Union Protestant Church, $3 a pound to take home), and beef, advertised in the Events section of the local paper. I never like to take photos of food at these plentiful church suppers because it gives me away as an intellectual, but absolutely had to photograph this dessert table to show you, no matter what anyone thought. (The secret of life is: Nobody's thinking about you. Nobody's looking at you. They're all too busy worrying about themselves.)

Yet how to choose? Pumpkin, seasonal, one of the pleasures of late fall? Lemon, 'cause I get it so rarely? Berry pie, because the summer drought meant no berries in the meadow this season? Cherry, because it's always great? Peach, because you never know what you might be missing? Apple, because that's American? Exotic entry, Amish Pineapple pie? Coconut, or chocolate silk, or pecan pie? Custard? How about a slice of each? How about Union Pacific lays some railroad track out to my house and delivers me pie every day by the boxcar full? The only thing they didn't have was Concord grape pie, a New England regional specialty I liked to make from the purple grapes I and my friends liberated from abandoned grape arbors in upstate New York. I make a good one when I want to do the work.

On my deathbed I just know the pies of my life will pass before me.

If this photo does not make you want to go to church suppers than nothing will.

Eat Your Heart Out

Berry lust. . .

Go into the Divine meadow, look at the fat blackberries shining like patent leather and multi-chambered, ripe and free of charge, and try not to pick them even though they're on briars that gaily hook and rip your flesh. Berry-picking is one of my greatest pleasures because a pie is inevitable. I now pick wearing long sleeves, long pants, and a glove on the picking hand. I have always liked pies: custard, peach, chess, pecan, cherry, key lime, coconut; also savory pies, and I can't get spiritually close to  people who don't like pie. There's nothing more Midwestern than a homemade wild-blackberry pie which I made this morning -- unless it's serving that pie to a friend.

Where to find blackberry briars? Look in sunny, grassy meadows on the edge of a Missouri woods. National Pie Day aptly falls on my birthday in the winter, and  I look for pie wherever I go (black bottom pie, chocolate cream, banana cream, lemon meringue, orange chiffon, apple, pumpkin) and have made piecrust expertly so many times -- the secret is, DON'T roll it out, merely press it into the pan -- I developed permanent muscle memory. The secret to a great berry pie slice is to avoid cornstarch and use Minute Tapioca instead. You'd never know it was in there, and the slices hold their shape. Also, use a cup more berries than the recipe calls for, and instead of dotting the top with butter, use small bits of coconut oil. My guest wanted to see the berry vines, so we went out and was surprised to see -- after picking them clean yesterday -- so many patent-leather blackberries just begging to be harvested again today.

Levee High

The town of Kimmswick on the Mississippi River has suffered many floods but is still quaint, with 1840s houses, gift shops and craft shops, and my neighbor treated me to a hearty homemade lunch there at The Blue Owl, a historic country tearoom that grew into a gingham restaurant that never forgot it evolved from a bakery -- and to this day produces the Levee-High Apple Pie, which makes the "normal" pies surrounding it seem like rice cakes by comparison. The Christmas-cookie tray (not shown; it's too many calories to even look at) also had a major wow factor. The Blue Owl keeps country hours, closing at 3 (that's p.m.!) on weekdays and at 5 on Saturday and Sunday; closed Mondays. Currently it's got nice Christmas decorations. Order a slice of Levee-High Apple Pie and half a pound of sliced apples collapses onto your plate. Nowadays when they say "as American as apple pie," they mean this one.

Serious Pie

The Hen House along I-44 in Bourbon, MO is a gingham curtain/wooden table family restaurant with a stunning refrigerated display of pies right behind the hostess as you walk in the door. There must be twelve kinds. It's my favorite place when I'm having a pie attack. (Cracker Barrel's crumbly little pie slices only in a pinch.) One Saturday evening I had such serious pie on my brain I prepared to drive 45 miles to the Hen House. Luckily I phoned first, because it was 7:00 p.m. and it closes at 8:00 p.m. when all decent people settle in bed or are well on their way there, but I do wish it were open all night. I feel comfortable and understood at the Hen House like I never do in beatnik coffeehouses. Serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, awesome fried chicken, pot roast with gravy, and all your other Missouri dream foods, and their strawberry lemonade is #1 on my hit parade. It also does catering --an idea so delightful it staggers me. This post is in honor of my friend Duke, another pie fiend. The right slice of pie lights him up like a Christmas tree.