It's still hot. The sweet, spicy liquid swims around the bottom of the pie pan. I load the apple pie into the back of the car, uncovered, nestled between rolled-up towels to hold it in place. The hot pie is headed to an apple pie contest I entered on a lark. It's late morning now. I spent the early morning peeling tart apples of some unknown heirloom variety. I made breakfast for my young son: brown cereal in his white bowl. His bowl is the one bowl he has refused to deviate from for his eight years. He has a routine recipe for consistent success.
I'd been told my apple pie is delicious. When my husband's Italian friends make the journey across the Atlantic, they ask for my apple pie, asking in English with adorable accents. The sweetest sound is how they pop the letter P with their watering mouths.
I've never followed a recipe for apple pie. Every time I make a pie, it's an adventure.
The pie I made for this contest, by anyone's measure, was wrong. The list of ingredients included allspice, nutmeg, lemon, cream cheese, German brandy, and a mixed bag of crisp, crunchy apples. The crust was a butter crust, lots of butter, and salty. I don't do fancy crust decoration. I follow the illustration buried in my head from a childhood book of a pie filled with blackbirds. The crust is pinched on the sides with a cross cut in the center. Perhaps the cross let the birds breathe?
I arrive at the Pie Contest and carefully carry my warm pie to the long table covered in red gingham. There are swarms of professional pie makers and yellow jacket bees. I am a late arrival and am Pie #28. I feel the flood of shame, "I'm a fool," and the endorphins of excitement, "Look at all the amazing pies!". Red rises in my cheeks. I ooh-and-ah around the table admiring the criss-cross lattice crusts, the ooey-gooey crumb tops, the funny flat-dipped pies, and so many more. The smell is honey cider, and the noise is chitter chatter. People debate "lard vs. butter" and "cooked apples or thin cut." There are pensive pie contenders whose pride wafts around them like a cloak, and probably people like me who are slightly embarrassed to have a pie on the table.
The judges arrive, a group of locals determined by the apple orchard owners. A hush and a buzz settle in the crowd as small pie plates are whisked to a secret back room. I've decided that Pie #3 is the winner. A gorgeous golden-crusted beauty. I marvel at how every pie is a surprise when cut into. Some are pink, some are mushy, some are chunky. Mine is creamy.
The time has come. The judges walk out of the small back room and stand in a line holding three ribbons. Blue, Red, and Yellow. The types of ribbons you see hanging on horse stalls or in county fairs. I'm taken with the excitement of the stand. All of us onlookers know someone amongst us is a winner.
The first place goes to ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Have I ever experienced such a sensation of victory?
I'm telling this story today because it's time to make pie. I still do not follow a recipe. Following the first-place pie victory, I entered the contest again a few years later. I won third place that year for some other variation of apple pie. Still good.
Once, when I wrote my artist bio, I included being an apple pie winner in my list of achievements. A friend at the time said, "That's not you," to be so cheeky. I indeed thought it was hilarious. It's still hilarious. I also think it's me and something about myself that I am growing to love–I don't follow recipes, I can be cheeky, I don't always get it right, I put together what tastes good at the moment, and sometimes that's a winning combination. We can win and be deserving of our wins even if we don't get there the ordained way.
PS. This is a first draft of this letter, no recipe, only determination to send it on Sunday morning and it’s getting late already! Not every thing we make will be zingers but it’s good to keep playing (I like the word play better than try).