American Pie

Fall is coming early this year, rushing in like a river when the levee breaks. And like a flooding river, fall creates turmoil. Looking to the hills I see oaks still sporting their summer work clothes of green, sassafras and sumac waxing crimson, and dogwood paying the price for its springtime finery with sad, drooping reddish-brown leaves that look like some sort of wasting disease.

The weather roils too. It nearly hit 80 today and is expected to reach a high of 85 tomorrow -- brilliant clear hot days. But Saturday night I needed a blanket, and last Wednesday and Thursday it was not only chilly, but thunder storms stalked across the hillsides ripping limbs from trees and lighting the sky with pre-Cambrian violence.

People, too, seem to be reacting to this particular season's mad rush. I've had three cooking classes canceled so far. I sense a feeling of uncertainty in the letters to the editor published in the local paper. The "Vol Fever" suffered by football fans and, perhaps more so, non-fans seems more manic than usual. And the number of fall festivals here in the hills of East Tennessee has multiplied almost to the point where you could step on each one, like stones in a creek to reach December from August. It's a last mad frenzy of activity before settling in for the winter.

Fall is my favorite season and if I tell you I was born in the fall you might think, "Aha! Of course this is Kevin's favorite season." But I have to confess that fall is my worst time of year. When I was younger I suffered from my most difficult bouts of depression in the fall. These days I seldom experience the emotional lows I once did, but fall still brings a certain lethargy, a tendency to step back from engagement, a soupçon of apathy colored with ennui.

I have a cure, though, for this failure of spirit. It is, in fact, the cure for most of my spiritual ills. I cook.

Note. I did not say "I eat," although I do. Eating isn't the cure, cooking is (sadly, the results of this cure are the same as eating for a cure).

Cooking is how I connect my mind to the world. Cooking is how I connect feeling to thinking to doing. It's the hinges in a triptych of consciousness. And fortunately for me, fall is the best time to cook.

Fall is a time for complex flavors slowly and thoughtfully welded together into something simultaneously new (this evening's meal) and genuinely ancient. We stretch back in time with our soups and stews and braises far, far beyond the instant meals found at MacDonalds or zapped in our microwaves. We connect deeply to our ancestors when we slow down enough to make a great pot of chili or beef stew.

In our overly perfumed and hygienic age we've lost the gusto -- and I say this with absolute sincerity -- of smelling wet dog and sheep, cow manure, and even other humans.

Certainly such a romantic notion can be carried too far, but I recall such smells from my childhood. And I recall hugging my father after a Saturday spent cutting firewood and his acrid scent of sweat, sawdust, and leaf mold. I recall how the house smelled of woodsmoke from the fire we built and of chuck roast simmering on the stove. A roast from a cow we'd raised. A cow with a name, and appreciated the more so because we'd known it.

My mother was never much for baking. She could make a fine pie, but in my memory they were rare. Nevertheless I love fruit pies and they too have a long and honorable history. And like the best fall fare, they fill the house with irresistible aromas bringing calm and peace. And so, as I do each fall, I made an apple pie.

This is a fairly standard recipe. But, standard or not, it includes a secret (not so secret anymore, I guess) ingredient.

Dutch Apple Pie

1 ea 9" deep dish pie shell
Filling:
7 c apples (6-7) -- peeled and sliced thin
1/2 c sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pinch cayenne pepper
2/3 c all purpose flour
2 tbsp butter
Streusel Topping:
1 c packed brown sugar
1 c quick cooking oatmeal
3/4 c all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp fresh lemon zest
1 stick chilled unsalted butter, cut into little chunks

Heat oven to 425F.

Mix all filling ingredients, except butter, together in a large bowl and toss to coat. Allow to sit, and toss again. Repeat until no dry ingredients are left in bottom of bowl.

Add all topping ingredients to a food processor and pulse several times until mixture just begins to clump into pea-size lumps.

Empty filling into pie shell and dot with butter. Bake for ten minutes in center of oven. Sprinkle topping over pie, reduce heat to 350F, and continue baking 35 minutes.

The cayenne pepper should be completely in the background and noticeable as no more than a slight tingle on the tongue. However, this tingle really sets off the flavor of the pie.

This article is dedicated to Sandy, Audrey, Donna, and all the others dedicated to the often thankless effort to communicate. Please, feel free to tear it apart.