2021-2022 Page Break

What’s so Easy About Pie?

By A’nna Wilcox I used to bake a lot. Cookies, cupcakes, cakes, and yes, the occasional pie. I don’t know why I liked to do it; it may have something to do with my sugar addiction. Maybe it has to do with how I like control. In baking, everything is measured. There’s a right and a wrong way to do things, and I’m in charge. For me, that’s easier than trusting others to help, or experimenting with ingredients and proportions.

Pie is particularly easy. You can buy a crust, buy the filling, put it in the oven, and cut a slice. Like a box cake mix, your main objective is to put everything together. But like cake, pie doesn’t always have to be easy.

With pie, I know exactly what to do. And I do it right, and I’m happy, and they praise me. But there’s no “right” way to spend my afternoon after school. Yet I’m constantly looking around, looking for the answer. In school, there is always a right answer. There is a right thing to do. The teacher tells me, and I do it right, and I’m happy, and they praise me. But suddenly there is nobody telling me what to do. I’m looking, I’m looking around–tell me, please. Just give me the crust; I can put it together.

The true issue is that I have to make decisions.

I don’t know if I want control or I want someone telling me what to do. They seem contradictory, but isn’t that what it means to bake a pie?

I only really make two pies. One is an apple pie: a mess of burbling, gushy sugar in a cast iron skillet. The other is a tourtiere: a French Canadian holiday meat pie, thick with spices and a warmth felt even when served cold. The apple pie is deliciously easy: a true project of assembly. Tourtiere is more of an art, as I usually make