Mom and Apple Pie

When she was alive, my mother made what I considered the best apple pie in the world.

The key to its flaky crust (even on the bottom) was in her fingers. She never used a recipe but knew by the feel of the dough when it was just right.

"When it's too wet you feel it's gooey," she told me. "If it's too dry, you can't roll it out. Then it crumbles too much."

She was 63 then and I was 23, interviewing her for an article I was writing for The Community Press, where I had landed my first job as a reporter.

"I have the feeling — how it's supposed to be," she said.

This small German woman had never even tasted pie before coming to America in 1952.

"I learned how to make it in my second year here," she said. "A neighbor girl came over and showed me how."

She had watched the girl — "I don't remember her name, but she was a very nice girl" — as she carefully measured the ingredients.

"I couldn't read the recipe. That's why I had to see it — what she put in," my mother recalled. "That's why I never used a recipe. I couldn't read English."

At the time she could hardly speak English, and the neighbor girl had to show her, rather than tell her, how to make the pie.

"She measured everything. At first I measured everything, too, but then I just used my own judgment."

If you asked my mom, "How much flour?" or "How much sugar?" she would say, "Until it looks right."

I could never master it, but I did pick up a little secret for anyone who aspires to flaky-crust perfection.

"What makes the best pie is to use lard and shortening together," she told me.

This was not something the neighbor girl taught her, though. She discovered it on her own.

"I didn't have enough shortening one time," she said, "so I had to use half lard."

Don't have any lard on hand?

Get some.