Hello hello!  It’s been a while hasn’t it?
Where have I been?  Well, that’s a bit of a long story and it has to do with Cancer.
I’ll save you all the gory details to say that after surgery and several weeks of radiation follow-ups… I’m happy to report that it looks like we beat the sucker in to submission.

The whole ordeal sort of took the wind out of my sails and caused me to, once again, shift focus in my life.  One of the things I try to focus on more each day is appreciating the beauty in life.  Because even when the times are tough there is beauty to be found, be it a bittersweet lesson, a smile from a passerby, hearing a child’s laugh bubbling up from the bottom of their tummy, the sweet sound of birdsong, the teeny peeks of neon green buds on the ends of Winter bare branches, the smell of coffee, the purr of a cat nestled in your lap, hugs, the kindness and love from those who love you.
The simple fact that every single day that we are “here” is in and of itself one of the most beautiful and underrated things on Earth.

So today I wanted to share with you a little trick, it’s not a recipe, it’s a technique.  And it will bring beauty to something ordinary.

I’m speaking about Pie Crusts.
I love a pretty pie, in fact my love of pretty pies goes way way way back to when my Mom used to make her Pumpkin or Apple pies and she would hand cut pie dough ornaments in the shapes of an Apple or a Turkey or a Pumpkin or even Fall Leaves.  She would use a little paring knife with a fine tip while we watched her deftly cut the dough, then she would wet the backside of the cut out with a little water and ask us kids where on the pie she should put it.  We always settled on the center – that way everyone who had a piece of pie would get a little piece of the special cut out.

I followed my Mom’s method when I made my Vineyard Pie several years ago, by hand cutting the dough, forming small balls to make clusters and rolling out thin ropes to make vines, like you see here:

Anyone can do this.  It works the best with any pie that requires a Lattice style top crust.
You can even do this with your kids.
You can make the shapes on your pie crust any shapes you want.  Polka Dots, Hexagons, Triangles, Flowers, Hearts, Leaves, Dog Bones… literally whatever tickles your fancy.

What you will need:
– Cookie Cutters, in the desired shapes you want (or a paring knife if you are the artistic type)
-Parchment Paper (this helps keep the dough from sticking to your work surface)
-1 Cup of Water
-1 rolled out Pie Crust, just use your favorite shortcut recipe (flour & butter base or flour & butter/shortening base  OR you can totally use store bought if you want to and no one is going to judge you)
-Patience
-Egg Wash (optional)

What you do:
Get your pie dough rolled out on your parchment paper, then start cutting out your shapes with your knife or cookie cutter.  Once you have enough cut outs to cover your pie top, you will dip them one by one very quickly in to the water.  Just a quick dip and right back out.
Then you will start to place the cut outs on the pie filling, starting with the outside rim first closest to the crust.
Work your way in, overlapping as you go.
Use any extra cut outs to layer on top for more dimension if you want.
Bake it as you normally would.

Please note:  Juices will bubble up through the cracks, which is OK.  The juices will add a fruity lacquer to your cutout shapes, which just adds to the beauty of the pie.

The pie in the header image is the pie that I made last night to take to my Mother’s house.  She is recovering from surgery right now, and she was craving peaches.  So I made a Cinnamon Peach Pie for her adorned with flowers to lift her spirits.  I transported it unbaked and baked it at her house so that she could enjoy the wonderful smells in her house.
Here is a little cellphone snap of how it looked after it was finished baking:

She’s still talking about the pie today :)

Ever since I started doing these pies, they have generated a lot of Oohs & Ahhs!
I even got some love from Food & Wine Magazine on Instagram & Facebook!

So I thought I would show you some of the other Pretty Pies I have done recently.

For Halloween I did a Pumpkin Pie from scratch, I scattered leaf shapes with tinted egg wash on top to create this pretty little Fall bite, kinda makes you want to dive right in to that pile of leaves:

Then we come to my personal favorite – this pretty little Summer Blackberry Pie, festooned with little flowers.  I love how the juices seeped up on the dough because after the bake it really makes them POP!

And here is that Blackberry Pie after the bake!  A field of deliciousness just waiting for you!

It is with a very heavy heart that I, along with many others,  bid farewell to a magazine that threw open the doors of an exciting culinary world for me to explore. You can read more about the shuttering of Gourmet Magazine here.

It nearly has me to the point of tears, it’s like saying goodbye to a life long friend who had an instrumental hand in the changing of my life and my career path.  For if not for Gourmet Magazine I never would have seen my first shots of food porn or have learned that life is more than Meat, Potatoes & Gravy.  Gourmet Magazine has been in my home since the late 80’s, always there to offer up a recipe to impress friends and family, to inspire me to create something new of my own design or to whisk me off to some exotic destination where photos and explicit descriptions would set my mouth to water and my mind to wander.

My life as a food photographer and food stylist, well I think it was just fate, some luck and a whole lot of passion for food.  I’ve always loved cooking and entertaining, for me there is no greater satisfaction than feeding loved ones and seeing the bliss of something delicious that I prepared swathing over their palettes, or hearing the “yum, ohh mmm” sounds coming from them.  That is the greatest reward for me as a cook.  I put love, attention and my passion for food into everything I cook and I love it when those things are conveyed to the plate successfully.

It was on one occasion that I had a large dinner party at my house where I had served a hazelnut dusted ahi tuna steak wrapped in prosciutto that my friends sat looking at their plates in awe.  I insisted that everyone dig in but my guests insisted that the food was too pretty to eat and said that I needed to take a picture before they ate.  So I dug out my old Polaroid camera and snapped a quick picture.  For dessert we had Gourmet Magazine’s Apple Pie 1993, before serving it up I decided to try my hand at staging a shot in the kitchen before bringing out the slices to be devoured.  I had alot to learn and my curiosity in the world of Food Photography & Food Styling was sparked, or better still… it was ignited.

Over time, off and on, I tried my hand at documenting my own personal culinary journey.  This was in the days long before blogging existed so my documentation ended up in several 3-ring binders and photos in ziploc bags inside the binders, most of what I shot was a quick snap on Polaroid or using my old Canon 35mm film camera.  I didn’t have the luxury of fancy lighting, so I learned to make due with available light.  I learned that props were a key in creating a great mood to an image, because let’s face it who wants to look at a bunch of food photos on the same bunch of hexagon black plates circa 1990?  So the collection of new dishes began.

Can you believe I still don’t have enough props?

And with new dishes… well that meant napkins, silverware, cookware, colorful papers, baskets, towels, cutting boards…  enough stuff to fill a 10’x15′ storage space with prop goodies

Oodles of boards

Years later, my passion for food and photography would lead me down a road that would change who I am forever.  Magazines like Gourmet were there to inspire me, to make me think outside the box and to stop cooking from a box.  To this day I relish every savory, beautiful bite that this world has to offer.  I am a food geek, a food stylist, a food photographer, a lover of the origins of food, a supporter of farmers and artisan food producers.  All of which I would be none the wiser, if not for the enlightenment given by publications like the one whose cover so elegantly and deliciously closes forever.
Goodbye Gourmet, thanks for everything.

It’s been a long, wonderful road and I’ve come a long, long way.  Looking forward to the rest of the journey.

Apple Pie
adapted from Gourmet Magazine 1993 via Epicurious
(Please visit Epicurious for the full instructions & original recipe)

• about 8 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
• 3/4 cup tablespoon sugar
• 4 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon Allspice
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Juice of half a lemon
  
• 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
• milk for brushing the crust