Keep it simple: holidays and pie crust

Story and above photo of blueberry pie by Joshua Elie

 We all know that it is good to be good to each other. The holidays are great reminders of this. To be giving, even generous, when you can. To be a little less selfish and a little more selfless. Life has taught me that it is always better to give than to receive, but that doesn’t mean you have to put yourself in the poor house or load on so much stress around the holidays that you spend the whole time looking forward to it all being over.

You really don’t “have” to do anything so special.

After 9/11, my uncle Stuart wanted to have the whole family at his place for Christmas. I’ve never known anyone so plagued with “Murphy’s Law,” but somehow Stuart always stayed positive even though he was a real-life Charlie Brown. For instance, when he planned this big family holiday, we all bought our tickets to fly there, and then the towers came tumbling down.

We met up with my mother’s aunt Irene at O’Hare (Chicago’s airport), and we were supposed to fly to Phoenix together, but somehow my great-aunt got booked on a different flight. She, as usual, packed as if she were moving there and had this big extra suitcase that she couldn’t take on the plane. So, I offered to carry it for her. Then we got her on her plane.

Let’s paint a quick picture here.

We are at O’Hare during the busiest travel time of the year. There are Marines at checkpoints everywhere, pulling people out of the crowd for random checks, and we have about a half-mile walk to our concourse. I’m clean-shaven, hair tucked into my Santa Claus hat, wearing a black leather jacket with chains on the shoulders, and in one hand I’m carrying an electric guitar (in an assault rifle-shaped case) with an effects unit (kind of like a flat computer with a digital read-out) duct taped to it, and in another I’m carrying a big suitcase full of old-lady clothes and make-up. I got stopped and inspected at the first three checkpoints, and then, thankfully, they radioed ahead so I wouldn’t get picked for inspection again. At least I gave them all a good holiday laugh.

We landed in Phoenix. First stop: something to drink. I was a big Busch (beer) drinker in those days, but down south, guess what? They don’t have Busch, so I grabbed a couple other kinds of beers to try, then we stopped at a Taco Truck⸺those are fantastic in Phoenix, by the way⸺and got these humongous tacos. Then, off to the hotel. We were just dying to get out of our northern clothes and get some A/C going, but not my dad. He was hot, grumpy and not going to chill until the car was unloaded. I took my time in the bathroom, changing into shorts, while Dad was out there huffing and puffing in the Phoenix heat. I popped the top on a can of this stuff called Agave Hard Seltzer. They said it was a kind of Mexican beer, and, I tell you, it was the most gawd-awful liquid I ever tasted, but I played it cool because my dad was still barking away as he brought in the last of the luggage. His face was beet red, with sweat pouring down … I couldn’t help it.

“Hey, Dad, you gotta try this; it’s really good,” I said as I handed him the can. He immediately downed at least half of it and dove for a taco to get the taste out of his mouth. Ground beef gives him terrible heartburn, so he had all these little Agave-flavored burps the rest of the night, but, hey, at least he stopped barking.

The next day, we all got together at Stuart and his wife Patty’s house, and things were really pleasant. I got to see my cousins on that side again, and we all went to the movies, as Stuart is a big movie buff. We also went to a bunch of galleries, and I had to laugh because some folks were selling the same stuff out back for a tenth of the price.

I found a new lager beer I liked called Tecate. It’s fantastic served Mexican style on ice in a frozen mug with a salted rim and a wedge of lime. There are a lot of cool things in that part of the country to try and see, like the desert, which has this mystical beauty about it that I really can’t explain.

What was so nice about that vacation was that everything was relaxed; we didn’t “have” to do anything; we just had fun and enjoyed each other’s company. There was no big gift exchange, no big decoration displays, no competition of any kind, and nowhere we “had” to be at any given time.

I came away from that experience with a new perspective on holidays. Make it about the food, have everyone bring a dish to pass, and call it good. It is better to give than receive, but maybe relax and let somebody else be the “bigger giver” this year and bake a pie.

Elie’s Easy Pie Crust

 In a large bowl, place 1¼ cup flour and add one stick cubed (about ½”) refrigerator-cold butter. Mix with your hands until coated with flour. Add ¼ cup ice water and mush together with hands until combined, then form into a ball. Cut in half and roll out each, making two pie crusts. If only one crust is needed, place the second half in a plastic sandwich bag and flatten. Store in the fridge for a week or two, or freeze for months.

Fill your pie crust with your preferred pie filling. Egg wash the crust and bake for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees. This crust is very forgiving as far as oven temperature and length of baking time. The egg wash will give you a nice golden brown when it is done.

For a lattice top, put one cube of cold butter in between each crossing and use egg wash. For a graham cracker crust, please refer to “Dancing in the Kitchen”, Freshwater Reporter, Dec. 4, 2022. This crust works great for pumpkin pie, too. Happy Holidays! 

Read more stories by Joshua Elie HERE and his bio HERE.