Making Apple Pie Together

In about an hour and a half, all of us are going to a Cub Scout meeting.  Since it's a long meeting, they decided to make it a potluck and Mike volunteered me to make apple pie.  I think he was hoping I'd make him one too. 

I just got done in the kitchen. Well, I still have to wipe the counter and clean my Tupperware pie mat, but all of the pies are in and they smell delicious.  Usually when I'm making pie, I put on an audiobook or some loud music, but today I didn't.  Nick was working with me the whole time, peeling and cutting apples, and chatting away.  Much better than music. 

"Do you think I'd make a good chef?" he asked.

I know his sense of taste.  From a very young age, he's surprised me with his taste for food.  He likes artichokes, raw oysters, asparagus, and crab.  Sometimes, he asks to go out for sushi.  I'm sure the conveyor belt has something to do with his fascination with the place.  I remember the way he seasoned my spaghetti sauce once when he was only four, stirring, tasting, and dumping in copious amounts of oregano, basil, and locatelli.  I never added that much oregano or cheese.  It was delicious.  I know how picky he is about the taste of bottled water.  Mike has that same fine sense of taste that I don't have.  I always let him season the stew.  More often than I used to, I rely on Nick for tasting.  He loves being my taste tester.  When Nick was just beginning to taste food as an infant, I'd let him smell my different spices, cinnamon, curry, allspice, sage, basil, whatever I could find.  He liked the smelling game.

"You'd make a great chef," I told him as I rolled out a pie crust.  I don't usually like making more than one apple pie because of all the peeling and cutting.  I asked Nick to help because my hands hurt before I even started.  Nick is still high on his right to use a sharp knife.  He's very careful and has never cut himself.  He peeled and cut fifteen apples, all the while chatting about how he was going to share his sugar-free pie, how he'd enjoy working in a restaurant, how he thinks there should be a toy company that makes action figures to order. 

Now, Nick and I are practically in agony because the smell is permeating the house.  Here's my apple pie secret:  I add more cinnamon than most people use plus I also use a bit of ground ginger.  I also use a mixture of butter and lard in my crust.  So now you know.  Together, we made three large pies and three small ones.  I think Nick is going to eat one of the small ones all by himself.  I know that Nick will get a lot of good attention when Mike tells the Cub Scout folks that he's hugely responsible for their pie.  It was a productive day in the kitchen, don't you think?

Thank you for listening, jb