Pie Spy - Fat Apple's Restaurant & Bakery

A road trip to Berkelely on the last Friday of January necessitated some Pie Spying.

In San Francisco Magazine's January issue, we had read a short blurb about Fat Apple's. Fat Apple's is a breakfast-lunch spot - actually two spots: the home location at 7525 Fairmount Avenue in El Cerrito, and 1346 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in Berkeley. They have a range of salad, soup, sandwiches, and hot entrees, but what really hooks us is the full bakery case. Fat Apple's makes scones, cookies, pastries, cakes, and you-know-what, under the masterful watch of Hildegard Marshall, the founder and owner.

At the Fairmount Avenue location, the skylit, barrel-vaulted interior (a former grocery store, our hostess told us) is dominated by a very large, square oven situated in the very middle of the building. The oven is probably close to 15 feet on each side. Our hostess explained that this oven runs 24-7 during the holidays, when the place pumps out pies non-stop (especially pumpkin). Although it was well past the peak of lunch hour (and traditional bakers' hours) when we visited, there were still at least a dozen workers visibly hustling around the place. By the way, pie crusts are made with butter, and also with love and skill.

There is a diner counter and tables for 80 or so people. Reproductions of Wayne Thiebaud pictures, as well as other, temporary exhibits by artists, adorn the walls.

Fat Apple's most widely acclaimed favorite pie is the ollalieberry, shown below:

You can choose from several flavors of pie, if ollalieberry is not what you came for. There was a slice of lofty lemon meringue going by as we ordered lunch. The chocolate creme pie looked as dense and dark as chocolate mousse. The apple pie was puffed up, and my imagination ran wild. Just for the sake of research, we ordered a slice of the cherry pie after a filling lunch of spinach salad and a portobello mushroom sandwich (both pretty good).

Pie by the slice is $4.25. You could purchase a whole fruit pie there for $17.00 (and be very happy).

The pie slice comes unadorned with whip or ice cream. Which is good, because usually I forget to request that these be deleted. Despite the neon-red color of the filling, I could tell this was no institutional pie. The cherries were tart, firm, and still individually imbued with flavor. The red matrix in which they floated was pleasantly sweet and a little bit thick, but never gooey, chemical, or dominating. It was definitely more cherries than red gel. I could tell that the crust had been made with butter because of the distinct flavor note as well as the flaky, light texture as I broke it - in my delicate way - with the fork. I had to increase the shutter speed on my camera, because this piece was of the stealthy, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't variety. It disappeared in what seems like a flash!

The finishing touch to our Fat Apple's experience was the receipt. Pie Spy finds wisdom in unexpected places. Be sure to read below the bottom line. That's what I'm talking about.

Post-Pie Party 2010

Do I detect a slight bowing of the table legs under the weight of all those pies?

Estate-grown pecans from Clarksburg were the star of the pecan pie.

SacPie's first annual Pie Party pix are in. By my count, we had about 0.8 pies per guest. Yes, that is - truly - a lot of pie.

Above, Kim's veggie pot pie following the Food Network recipe I cited last week. With fennel - doesn't it look great? And it was absolutely a hit. Also on the savory table were a potato-cheese gallette, broccoli-mushroom quiche, a second, different veggie pot pie (Jim), impossible seafood pie (Linda), a mushroom frittata (Kim), a beautiful Waldorf salad (Linda), and a tasty green salad with homemade croutons (Amy). All devoured. Next time, I will have to hang a sign that reminds eaters to save room for dessert.

Below, Mark's homemade samosas, reheating on the stove. Although my plan was to send everyone home with extras, there were none of these left within about 15 minutes of this photo. The filling was all-vegetables, with characteristic Indian flavorings. And the dipping sauce was a quince chutney contributed by none other than Sacatomato's Lynn Gowdy.

Here you can see how difficult it was to work one's way down the dessert table. There are only six pies shown above, but there were two more out of the frame. We had two pumpkin (Amy, Kim), one double-chocolate (Celia), one Linzer torte, one sweet-potato (Pat), apple-mince, an estate-grown pecan (Linda), and gluten-free apple (Sid). The gluten-free apple was the baker's first-ever pie, and he infused the filling not only with cinnamon but anise and fennel seed. The crust was made with rice flour -very tasty.

Why was it that we bought all that ice cream?

The seasonal abundance of Northern California was represented at the Pie Party in some spectacular small-label wines, home-grown almonds, a pie made with a garden pumpkin, and fresh-squeezed lemonade.

My thanks and appreciation go out to everyone who came, for sharing their recipes and spending time with us. If you did not get a chance to grab the recipes for the pies at our party, please let me know and I'll make them available.

Meanwhile here at SacPie, we have pie leftovers coming out our ears:

Based on the success of our First Annual Pie Party, I will be planning others for the spring and fall. Why not organize your own to showcase the apricots, peaches, cherries, and berries that will be ready in June? May I appropriate Slow Food's word, convivium, to apply to this and all future Pie Party gatherings in our town?

Create, Make, Taste, Eat, Share - It's Pie Day!

(hey, sis, thanks for remembering Pie Day and baking the date right into your pie.)

It's the day we've been waiting for ALL YEAR LONG: National Pie Day! What could bring more smiles around the table in the deep murk of midwinter, than a pie made with the natural bounty of our Sacramento Valley home? Maybe you have even stashed away some of last summer's harvest in the freezer, to make a peach-blueberry or apricot-ginger confection. Or perhaps Pie Day has caught you by surprise, again, and - well - there is so much that needs to be done. Then the thing to do is to get yourself a beautiful pie from one of the local pie purveyors. Any way you slice it, it's THE DAY for pie.

To paraphrase one of my dad's favorite expressions, you should only eat pie if you're alone, or with somebody.

“When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmmm, boy.” So said Jack Handy.

Next-best things to eating pie:

• Ask for suggestions about the next one you'll make.
• Go to the Wayne Thiebaud Works on Paper exhibit at the Sac State Library Gallery, 10 to 5 Tuesday through Saturday, through March 6, to look at his drawings and prints of pie, other confections, and urban landscapes.
• Ask a baker friend or relative to teach you how to make pie from scratch.
• Teach your child the ABCs using pie fillings or names (I challenge you with H through J and U through Z).
• Make up a pie anthem (there is a very good one out there for cheese; why not pie?) and send it to SacPie; we'll post the best one!
• Start planning for next year's Annual Pie Party - save the date!

Friends, however you plan to enjoy your Pie Day, I hope you will share it with SacPie. Stay tuned for our Pie Party 2010 pics and pies.

Pie of the Week - Vegetable Pot Pie

It's WINTER. It's RAINING. It's time for Pie That's A Meal.

Vegetable Pot Pie may be a cure, or at least a palliative, for the Sacramento Winter Blahs.

Unfortunately, I have not yet found a local sit-down eatery that serves vegetarian pot pies. You can buy individual-sized ones at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op (www.sacfoodscoop.com) to bring home and heat up in your own oven, if that's convenient for you. But it's not difficult to prepare your own with what you already have in the house.

Winter vegetables like potatoes, butternut squash, turnips, and carrots are abundant here in the Sacramento Valley in the winter farmer's market stands. They are also extremely durable, which means you can take your time figuring out how and when you're going to eat them. The only down side of root vegetables and squashes is that they are bland as baby food when prepared by themselves. This is one reason a lot of people claim to detest them. Our Pie of the Week aims for an alchemical combination of these nutritious and plentiful staples in a hearty, double-crust savory pie. In addition to staving off the Blahs, it may also make converts of the non-root-vegetable-eating members of your household. Paired with a fresh green salad, this makes a satisfying dinner or brunch item. A side of cranberry sauce might make you come out of your funk and feel festive.

If you search the web for vegetable pot pie recipes, as I have, you will find a bazillion of them. Some include beans, or cheese, or noodles, or spinach, or tofu. You can customize the filling in a number of distinct but satisfying ways. Whatever your choices, 6 cups of filling is a good target amount. The common denominator of these recipes is that you pre-cook small pieces of whatever vegetables you plan to put in the pie, coat the vegetables with a little flour, and then add broth and a milk to create the sauce - or gravy- that is one of the most joyous sensations about eating a pot pie. We're doing this one vegan, but you could substitute real milk and butter where I've used soy milk and Earth Balance.

Note: there will be quite a lot of peeling and chopping - maybe 30 minutes' worth. But it is RAINING, and you are not going outdoors anyway.

You could certainly opt for a less-crusty version of this by spooning the prepared vegetable filling into individual pots (or one big pie dish) and doing only a top crust. But to me that sounds like it might result in messy cleanup work (both the pots and the bottom of the oven). SacPie rocks the double crust. We need those calories for hibernation, and we never, ever want to clean the oven.

This recipe is a riff on the Food Network recipe from Aida Mollenkamp (http://www.foodnetwork.com/). I had some butternut squash, already steamed, in the fridge. I had turnips, a leek, some Yukon Gold potatoes, celery, carrots, garlic, and a big bunch of Italian parsely. I had broth from cooking beet greens and some dried porcini mushrooms to infuse the broth. I did not include fennel or peas or chives, but only because I didn't have them in the house when it was time to make pie.

Ingredients:

1 T unsalted butter or Earth Balance

2 small heads of fennel (or 2 sticks of celery), finely chopped (about 3 c.) - OPTIONAL

1/2 medium yellow onion (or one leek), finely chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and finely chopped (about 2/3 c.)
12 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced (about 5 c.)
1 small Russet potato peeled and diced small (about 2 1/2 c.)
1 small turnip peeled and diced small

1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. vegetable broth (warmed)
1 c. milk (or plain soy milk)
1 c. frozen baby green peas - OPTIONAL
1/4 c. thinly sliced fresh chives (or whatever your herb choices are)
1/4 c. parsley
1 T white vinegar
1 large egg yolk, beaten with 2 tsp of water - OPTIONAL
1 double-crust pie dough

OTHER OPTIONAL HERBS: sage, thyme, bay leaf, chipotle powder, rosemary

Directions:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees and arrange a rack in the middle.

Melt the butter/EB over medium heat in a 3- to 4- quart pan. When it foams, add the fennel, onion, carrots, (garlic, leek, celery, turnip) and cook until just soft and onions are translucent. Add mushrooms and potato (also bay leaf and/or rosemary sprig, if using. These should be removed when the filling is finished cooking). Season well with salt and pepper, stirring to coat. Remember that root vegetables tend to use more salt. Cook, stirring rarely, until mushrooms have let off water and are shrunken, about 6 min.

Sprinkle flour over the vegetables, stir to coat, and cook until the raw flavor is gone, about 1-2 min. Add broth and milk gradually, stirring constantly until the mixture is smooth. Bring to simmer over medium heat, cooking until slightly thickened, about 5 min. Remove from heat. Add peas (or canned beans or edamame), herbs, and vinegar, stirring to coat. Taste to correct seasoning.

Pour the filling into a 9-in pie crust. Place the top crust over filling and seal. Brush dough with egg wash (optional) and cut slits in the top crust. Bake until crust is golden brown and mixture is bubbling, about 25-30 min. Let stand at least 5 min before serving. I know it will be hard to wait that long, but restrain yourself.

I baked this pie for about 40 minutes in order to get a browner crust. One of the things I've learned about the palm oil shortening crust recipe is that it is slow to brown, but difficult to overcook.

The pie filling cooks to a compact, moist endpoint. Individual chunks of potato, squash, turnip, and carrot are still identifiable but blend creamily with the gravy. The taste was as close as I've come yet to the filling in Freeport Bakery's knishes (http://www.freeportbakery.com/), which are elegant and delicious (and the subject of a future blog). One generous slice of this pie and a side of steamed broccoli was a substantial, comforting dinner. I nearly forgot that it was raining.

Let me know how the Winter Blahs, and the winning of the hearts, minds, and palates of your vegetable objectors is going after you make this.

Pie of the Week - Apple

I have never met anyone who expressed a dislike of apple pie. Maybe because it feels subversively un-American to voice such nonsense. But I think, on the contrary, that almost everyone who has eaten a good apple pie finds something in it to love.

Apples, of course, were one of the least perishable and abundant fruits available to the white settlers of the United States. Today, 60% of all apples raised commercially in the U.S. come from Washington state. And the U.S. is the second largest producer of apples worldwide, after China.

As to the pie, I consider apple pie a playground for experimentation because of the varied but gentle flavoring of the fruit. Endless possibilities can be explored - a different mix of apples, addition of dried fruit or chopped nuts, a crumble topping instead of crust, pouring heavy cream through the slits in the crust after the pie comes out of the oven. In southern Ohio, homemade apple pie was offered to me warmed with a small slice of melted cheddar on top. That variation becomes an apple-cheese gallette when you bake the cheese on top in a tart pan, without an upper crust.

And when, in my 30s, I discovered that I could warm up a slice of apple pie in the toaster oven, pour some milk over it, and make it my breakfast on a hostile winter morning - well! It changed my life. Not only because I felt like I was getting away with something naughty, but because knowing that there was apple pie out in the kitchen was singularly motivating when it came to getting me out of a warm bed and waking to the cold world. Apple pie is wintertime pie for me.

So, I've made the point that apple pie can be different every time you make it. Take some time to explore variations on the theme so you can decide whether you have a favorite.

I am a big fan of the old reliable, Betty-Crocker variety template - a double-crust pie with nothing but sliced apples, cinnamon, sugar, and a little bit of flour in the filling. This is the pie of childhood and it never disappoints, even if the crust is ugly (as it turned out today).

There are many new apple hybrids out there in the stores and farmer's markets, which I am certain have their merits - HoneyCrisp, Fuji, Braeburn, Gala, and on and on. Many of these are grown just outside the Sacramento Valley in the Apple Hill area. I have not tried a pie with any of these. My preference is for a slightly tart apple that has little juice, so I look for MacIntosh as a first choice. When I can't find those, I go for Granny Smiths. Granny Smiths don't cook down much. I love their firmness and the snap of their tartness. The Macs are good not only for pie, but for applesauce too. But they are a little juicier, and tend to reduce as they bake, yielding a creamier consistency. Macs have the slight disadvantage of being less abundant in Northern California markets in the winter months. This is an apple that hails from Ontario, Canada and was in my lunch box pretty regularly when I was a kid. The Macs today tend to have an overly tough skin, but a crisp white interior and great appley-ness.

I have never pretended to be an expert baker, and you don't need to be in order to make a terrific, flavorful apple pie. The main points are 1) make sure the apple slices, or chunks, are of a uniform size for even cooking, 2) press down on the mound of apples slightly to compact and settle them into a symmetrical domed shape, and 3) add a little starch of some sort to the filling in order to prevent the dreaded wet pie syndrome. This could be a tablespoon of flour, or a little less of cornstarch, or tapioca, mixed in well with the sugar and cinnamon. Bake it until the crust is golden and you see bubbles of fruity steam coming out the vents.

You can make an apple pie in the hour after dinner and have a warm slice of it before bed. Or, better yet, just skip making dinner and go directly to pie.

Happy New Year! Countdown to National Pie Day!

National Pie Day is only 22 days away. Will you be ready?

SacPie's first annual Pie Night Party will include sweet and savory pies of all shapes and sizes. Anything stuffed and baked in an unleavened dough envelope qualifies as "pie." We will have a pie-making demo for any fearful and curious bakers among the guests. There will be salads and drinks, recipe swapping, a pie exchange, and a pie contest. Not a pie-eating contest, but a pie-tasting contest, with a growing number of categories. Best Pie to Eat All By Yourself In the Middle of the Night, Easiest Recipe, Weirdest Ingredients, et cetera...And I think we will have a winner in every category.

Almost as soon as I announced the Pie Night Party, the invitees expressed excitement about it. Some confided that they had lost touch with the art of making good crust and are motivated to re-learn. Others expressed a nuttiness for pie. Still others said they had recipes they'd been wanting to try.

Winter is a good time for a Pie Night Party - a warm kitchen filling the house with enticing aromas, eating something delicious that is still warm as you spoon it into your mouth, people gathered in a comfortable space on a chilly night...These all seem like ingredients for a successful party, and pie is the host and guest of honor.

I still casting about for more entertainments - ones that include, or at least don't interfere with, eating - so if you have any ideas, I invite you to share them with us. As SacPie's inaugural Pie Night, we want to get it right and make everyone want to come back for more. Perhaps you should get busy planning your own Pie Night (I won't be able to fit everybody at my place). What will make your Pie Night uniquely yours?

See what the American Pie Council is doing to promote Pie Day at piecouncil.org.