The annual apple pie

Like decorating the Christmas tree, apple pie making in early autumn has become a tradition. Each September I bring Crisco to Argelès from Geneva. The crust must be made with Crisco, even though a small can cost close to $8 at the American store on rue de Neuchâtel. Crisco makes the crust taste the way the apple pies made by grandmother and aunt tasted. It isn’t that I don’t like the tarte de pommes sold in patisseries here. They only have one crust usually made with butter and the evenly sliced apples are placed in solder-marching precision. I love them, but one does not replace the other or the other replace the one.

Even Babette at the green grocers knows when I pick up eight apples, it is The Pie-Making Day. Someday I should take her a piece, but there is never enough left after my friend Barbara and I finish.

I have an old tin pie plate stamped Table Talk. According to www.tabletalkpie.com “In the early part of the 1920s, the call of “ Fresh Pies”…get your fresh pies here!” was a welcome greeting as the Table Talk wagon filled with fresh pies was pulled by horses throughout small-town neighborhoods." I am too young to remember the horse drawn cart and I never really liked the pies baked by the Worcester, Massachusetts firm preferring my grandmother’s, but I do like the tin pan. Sadly the tin is in Geneva where I don't make pies.

I rolled out the dough and like always after the pie is almost oven ready, used the bird cookie cutter of my grandmother and my great grandmother to cut one perfect bird. I put it in the middle of the pie and cut the design of a tree around the bird to let out steam and make the pie pretty.

My friend Barbara arrived just as I pulled the pie out of the oven. Outside it was rainy and the smell pervaded the apartment.

The pie is good, but not only does it taste of today, it tastes of my childhood.