Home, Sweet Pie

There's a reason I've been slow to post lately - I'm west of Seattle (yes, there is something west of Seattle), land of intermittent internet connections. The north Kitsap Peninsula contains trees, salmon, old loggers, new yuppies, rocky beaches, tons of berry bushes, my huge family, and hundreds of pie bakers. I come back here and I'm put in my place. Of course you make the crust from scratch. And my family will tell me if there's too much cinnamon or the filling is undercooked in the middle. They like my pies, don't get me wrong, but it's a far cry from the city kids I usually eat with.

Turns out I'm a bit of city kid myself when I get back; the lazy days and long drive to the grocery store (well, to anything) throw me off at first. Then I adjust. I don't go online, I wander the seaweed-y beach, I tromp around for hours searching out berries ... I couldn't live like this all the time, but it's pretty good stuff for a couple weeks. Morgan and I and my squirrelly little brother hunted wild blackberries yesterday. Oliver rode ahead on his bike and reported sightings; the berries are hidden in thick patches of ivy or grass or brambles, on pale purple vines covered in fine, mean thorns. Oliver bravely beat the bushes with a stick but wasn't that interested in picking - too hard. We kept going, though, scratching up our wrists and hands, because these wild berries are gold. They're a hundred million times tastier than their blander counterparts, the Himalaya blackberries, which you see everywhere (and in stores). Wild blackberries have a sharper, fresher taste, sweet and sour with hints of the forest. They're harder to get and so much better for it. We've picked these for the past week and finally have enough for a pie!

The other berry I've been slowly amassing is the red huckleberry - pinkish, smooth, round, and plentiful in the woods. These are tart, sassy little berries, favored by black bears, not great for eating plain, but perfect for pie or jam. Problem is, they're too small, so they usually take a supporting role in a "mixed berry" pie. I'm determined not to let that happen this summer, but a whole week of picking and I've only got about 3 cups. I think I'll make mini-pies with them. I guess those are called tarts? Tartlets? Pie sounds more respectable...

Every time I come home, it's a pie-travaganza. Hmm, that sounds like an obscure Italian architecture term. It's more like pie city, but in a small small town. For a family party a few days ago I made a strawberry-rhubarb and a key lime that will get their own posts and photos. The wild blackberry and huckleberry will get their day in the sun, too, and I signed up to bring two fruit pies to the salmon bake next weekend. Yes, there is a town salmon bake. I haven't decided which kind those will be, but there's no shortage of options. My thrifty mother has a kind of mania for growing and freezing fruit. Her TWO freezers are brimming with Ziploc baggies and Tupperware containers of peaches, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and even, weirdly, cantaloupe. I ask, why do you freeze all this fruit? She says it'll go bad. But I think it's for the same reason she buys and freezes approximately one thousand pounds of butter.

You just never know when you'll need a pie.

All I can say is: I come by my pie obsession honestly.