What’s So Easy About Pie?- A’nna Wilcox

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

the crust.

Pie crust is actually a pretty hard pastry to make. You have to not only be very specific with your proportions, but how to add them together. And unlike a lot of baking, you have to improvise. You have to feel your crust: too warm, too dry? Like bread dough, you have to have a conversation. Listen, and respond. When I’m talking with that crust, I am alone. I’m not looking for instructions, I’m not hiding behind my dad. I decide when it’s right. I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I trust myself, and I trust the dough.

Pie can be easy, but I choose for it not to be. I make the crust so that I can have that conversation. Have that feeling of simultaneously having all control and none. Initially, I am lost in the myriad of choices. But I find control as I experiment, adding dashes of flour. And in the end, the challenge is conquered, but can always be continued.

I’m trying to make my life that dough. I don’t know what to do at school, at home, for the next five minutes or for the next five years. Maybe I just need to talk with it, poke and roll and sprinkle, and feel my way to the end.

Another easy thing about pie is that you can always try again. Make another one, make ten, if you want. But what I hate about decisions is that the slow and steady march of time makes sure every choice is final. If you add too much flour, that’s your crust forever.

I suppose my goal is to then see myself as an apple pie. Once I’m in the oven, everything molds together, and the little mistakes don’t really matter, and the end product is something entirely new. And it’s delicious.

Page Break 2022 Staff

Art Editor: Roxanna Davis Literary Editor: A’nna Wilcox Publicity Manager: Noah Silver Layout Editors: Sophia Bolan Deven Jackson

Art Team: Caitlyn Arnold Sophie Bolan Brittany Cardenas Lily Livingston Kennedie Owens A’nna Wilcox

Literary Team: Johniya Barnes Elaine de Guzman Madline Jones Kennedie Owens

Publicity Team: Caitlyn Arnold Johniya Barnes Sophie Bolan Brittany Cardenas Roxanna Davis Elaine DeGuzman Kennedie Owens A’nna Wilcox Cover Art: Roxanna Davis Faculty Sponsor: Ms. Eileen Carlson