Me Oh My, Cherry Pie - A Tribute To My Mother

Sunday will be the first time in my life I will experience the emotions associated with not having my mother on Mother's Day. She is eternally in my heart, but I find that I work very hard at not allowing myself to fully feel the complete emptiness in my soul that has been left by her absence. Avoidance of this pain will not be possible on Sunday and I am not sure how I will handle my feelings. I do find momentary comfort in various memories that have been coming to me in random moments recently as my psyche prepares itself for this monumental day. As a tribute to her life and the bottomless love she had for me and my siblings, I would like to share one of these memories with you.

Food has been in the forefront of my mind for a lifetime now and perhaps that is why the earliest of my memories centers around my mother in the kitchen. I was somewhere around the age of two and a curious observer perched securely within the confines of a wooden high chair. I had claimed the position of my parent's only child for the first fourteen months of my life, but because I don't believe I was quite that young in this memory, my baby sister was probably safely tucked in her crib for she was not present in my mind's eye on that particular morning.




As the scenario begins I can visualize the exact position of my high chair in the kitchen that day. I was sitting there with a Sugar Smack stuck up my nostril. My mother was carefully attempting to remove it with a hairpin and was repeatedly telling me not to move as she did a very poor job of trying to hide the escalating panic contained in her voice. That in turn caused me to be as non compliant as I dare, squirming and screaming but with the restraint of a kid that knew her mother meant business. I am happy to report that the extraction was successful and that I was not permanently traumatized by ready made cereal or hairpins!

On that same eventful morning, and in that same chair, I remember watching my mother bake a cherry pie from scratch. You have to understand that anyone who knew my mother would say that I must be mistaken...that I was too young to have a clear memory of that day...that I must be mixing her up with someone else. I can barely believe it myself but I am telling you that I am very clear on this point. It was my mother that was with me that day in the kitchen.

All the equipment for the auspicious task ahead was set out on the kitchen table...the egg beater, the wooden rolling pin, the metal flour sifter with a red wooden knob, and the brown glazed mixing bowl. The kitchen table was draped with a white table cloth that appropriately had a light blue border decorated with cherries on their stems, and it was folded back to reveal my mother's work surface. As the years went by that tablecloth served as a reminder of that memorable morning, as that day was the only one that would involve my mother baking a pie, cherry or otherwise.

There are no other specific details to share with you about that day other than a deep sense of the frustration and pride expressed by my mother and a beautiful homemade pie that sat on the kitchen table to show for it. To this day I absolutely love homemade sour cherry pie. I guess that kitchen memory had a profound effect on me because for a long time I had to wait for a luscious cherry pie to cross my path if I wanted to enjoy a piece. I was just too intimidated to even attempt to make one. I feel as though there may be some repressed memories of a negative nature connected to the crust making part of that baking project because the crust is what I feared the most.

Over the years I have collected many pie recipes and have even made several attempts at becoming the pie maker that I have always aspired to be, but every one of those experiences served to drive me deeper into the depths of my phobia. I know that it doesn't make a bit of sense, but I had actually dreamed of opening a shop one day and selling the most delectable and creative pies known to man. I knew I had to go back to those beginning memories of Sugar Smacks and cherry pits to figure out what happened in the kitchen of 618 Cricket Avenue that morning if I wanted to have a fighting chance of having that pie in the sky dream come to fruition. I never was able to remember the negative events of that day or open that pie shop, but I have conquered the reluctance of baking my favorite pie.

Thanks to my Momma for teaching me that it is not whether you succeed of fail, it's in trying that you become a winner. It will be that lesson taught to me by my mother's example, and a thousand others, that I will reflect upon when the sadness rushes in this week and especially on Sunday. My Mom will be right next to me this morning as I make my attempt to create the cherry pie of childhood memories and as I experience the bittersweet emotions of frustration, pride, emptiness, comfort, sadness, happiness, and nostalgia. I miss you my Momma...I miss you!!!


There is a town in neighboring Lebanon County called Schaefferstown that holds it's annual Cherry Fair, complete with a cherry pie baking contest, every June. Several years ago I saw the published winning recipes from the contest in my morning newspaper and decided to try my hand at making the first place pie recipe. For this recipe you don't even have to wait for cherry season because canned tart cherries are used. Make sure you have a very dull metal or Pyrex pie plate because your crust will not bake properly in a foil pan, as the shine will reflect the heat.




Cherry Pie/ First Place/ Barb Long,Lebanon

2(14.5 ounce)cans Musselman's Tart Pitted Cherries
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 Tablespoon butter

Drain cherries, reserving one cup liquid. Mix sugar and cornstarch in a small, heavy saucepan. Gradually stir in reserved liquid until smooth. Cook, stirring over medium heat,until mixture bubbles. Cook one minute more until thick and clear. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and cherries.

Pour into prepared pie crust. Cover with vented or lattice top crust. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees, and bake for 25 minutes until golden brown.


Crusts

4 cups flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 3/4 cups softened Crisco
1 large egg,cold
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon white distilled or white wine vinegar

Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Cut the shortening into the flour mixture with a pastry blender until uniformly mixed. Particles can be pretty large, but there should not be recognizable chunks of shortening or areas of plain flour remaining. Do not work the mixture so much that it turns into a paste.

Mix the cold egg, cold water, and vinegar in a measuring cup or small dish with a fork. The vinegar is an important ingredient. It emulsifies the egg and makes the dough more tender. Add the water mixture all at once to the flour-shortening in a large bowl and stir with a fork until it all hangs together. It will be a soft wet mixture.

Gather the dough together in a ball. You may have to add a tablespoon more of flour if it is very sticky. Pat into a ball with your hands like you were making a snowball. Wrap in wax paper, plastic wrap, or drop into a plastic bag.

Chill in the refrigerator at least one hour before rolling. This is enough for four 9-inch pie shells. You may freeze what you don't use for another time.


We Did It Mom!!