Rick and I went to the farmer’s market last Saturday and came home with some local (but frozen) pitted tart pie cherries- 4 lbs to be exact. I had a desire to make a cherry pie and I love our local cherries and hoard them whenever possible. Sometimes I buy a 5 gallon container when I can find one. As a matter of preference I never use canned filling – I’d rather not have the pie if I have to use that stuff.

I know there is a big movement in the food world right now to “eat local” and so everything old is new again -as usual. I support slow food, local food, grow your own, preserve your own and prepare your own food. I think it the right and healthy way to live. My credo – to get to the root of the matter- is actually to have as few people as possible in contact with my food before it gets to me. Cut out the middle man, the processor, the food defiler and chemical adulterer. I frankly don’t want my food to be processed into some chemically stable Twinkies with a half life of a billion years. I also want my food to be handled well and prepared with love-something, alas, I can best do on my own I think. I applaud small organic farmers and buy their produce at every opportunity. Good practices and smaller production seem to me to reduce the chances of contamination by various bacteria and other organisms. I want to trust in my food and the people it comes from. Real food, real earth, real nature, real health and community. And by the way using all of it so none goes to waste is a good policy too, I believe.

This is all a long around way of writing that I made a pie from cherries grown locally on a family owned farm – I bought them from the farmer himself and that made me feel good.

AND I NEVER use margarine-it’s outlawed in my home!,  and I will only use shortening when absolutely necessary and then it’s non GMO non Trans fat health food store Palm oil. Luckily for me I have a wonderful pie crust recipe that uses all butter-(the secret to all good things in life.)  This crust tastes good, is flaky and doesn’t leave that shortening created greasy slick on the roof of your mouth.  Here’s the recipe:

• 1 cup cold, cold, cold butter, cut into pieces
• 2-1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon sugar, omit if using crust for pot pies or other savory purposes
• 1/2 Cup Ice water- fill a measuring cup with ice and water and remove the ice and pour out all but 1/2 cup when ready to use.

Mix flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Toss butter pieces in mixture to coat and then rub with your fingers or cut in with a pastry cutter until most of the butter is mixed in to resemble coarse corn meal. Leave a few pea sized pieces of butter intact (these will add to the flakiness of your crust). You can do the above in a food processor also to this point. Then, rub the flour-butter mix in one direction only between your palms making small “leaves or sheets” of crust. Only go through bowl once doing this quickly. Add ice water just to bring it a bit together with a fork. It should be very shaggy and not really cohesive- it will come together as it is rolled out. Pour out onto a marble counter or wood cutting board and form into 2 rough rounds. You can wrap in plastic and let it rest in the fridge or work it immediately. May be frozen for future use as well. If rolling out after chilling let it rest at room temperature for about 15 minutes to be able to roll it. Makes two 10″ crusts.

To make the cherry pie:

Preheat the oven to 400F

• make the above pie dough and roll out the bottom crust
• drain the pie cherries(4 lbs or about 6 cups) well, collect the juice for another use
• mix the cherries with :
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Flour
• 4-1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon pure Vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
• a pinch of salt
• mix all above well

Roll out the bottom crust to line a pie plate with a bit of an overhang and brush with a mixture of egg yolk and heavy cream (1 yolk to 2 Tablespoons cream) this stops sog- bottom, Roll out the top crust and brush lightly with the egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, cut for a lattice. Pour in the cherries to the bottom crust. Arrange the top lattice over the cherries as you like it – you know basket weave or diagonal etc. Work quickly so things don’t get soggy and warm. Crimp the two crusts together to seal and bake on the bottom rack for 20 minutes at 400F then reduce the temperature to 350F and bake on the middle rack for about another hour or until crust is cooked and golden and cherries are bubbling away happily. It is wise to put the pie plate on a parchment lined baking tray unless you like cleaning up boiled over and burned juices.

Serve how you like it- it’s really good with homemade vanilla ice cream….slurp!

I hope you enjoy and I hope you have good food wherever you may be.