Pie as Practice: The Delta Breeze is Coming

Sac Pie has been quiet for a very long time.  During the hiatus, we have been working on other things.  We made a lot of pies, sweet and savory, delicious and inedible.  And we thought, what's all this pie about?  What are we going to do with all of this?

And not just pie.

What has been brewing in the brain is...

The Delta Breeze.

The Delta Breeze is going to begin happening very soon.  It's going to become a Sacramento neighborhood favorite hangout - one that happens to have an ever-changing array of great food and, of course, really nice, fresh, homemade pie.  We at Sac Pie have been doing research, consulting with experts, and putting a game plan together to create a "third place" that celebrates the bounty and variety of fresh food sourced from the Sacramento Delta.  Watch this space!  And deltabreeze.com.


While that is coming together, we continue the experiment, albeit without the blog.  Latest new twist in the test kitchen is substituting up to 1/3 cup of fine cornmeal for flour in the pie crust.  This adds a crunchy dimension to a sturdy, flaky standard shell. 

Bounty from the Delta - thanks to our friends in Clarksburg - has lately been put to use in wild blackberry and fig pie, which, not exaggerating, is the best fruit pie we've ever made.  Is it because we picked the fruit ourselves on a sparkling summer day? And scratched ourselves silly in the process?  Is it because we love both of those fruits to the moon and back? Hard to say.  But it was completely delightful.  The recipe was adopted from a crostata located online - which would make a great brunch item.  Even our Clarksburg hostess, who says she doesn't like figs, was fighting with her husband over her share of this pie.

You can see that the lattice crust starts out pretty but who knows what can happen after that alchemical interlude in the oven....

Still, it was better than good.  Just sayin.'