1, 2, 3 Is Easier. I Can Handle That

Whoever coined the phrase “Easy as pie” obviously never made a pie

Dinner at Jeremy's tonight!  He made dessert, apparently.

Actually, no.  I haven't made a pie recently, but I have done so in the past.  Either way, here we are, nearing pumpkin pie season, having made our way through summer pie season (cherry or strawberry-rhubarb are acceptable answers), and in the heart of apple pie season (I prefer Granny Smith apples for baking, but your mileage may vary).    Regardless of the season, it would seem, pie is involved.  So it's important to be able to make pies, or at the very least, eat them. 

In case you are caught unawares, making a pie is a pain in the buns.


Who's making buns?  I thought we were talking about pie.  


I suppose you can go with the new-fangled lazy approach and buy a pie crust, buy a can of pie filling, dump one into the other (the order matters here, people), and call it home-made pie, but that's not only the easy way out, but it's also too modern.  The phrase "Easy as pie" has been around since the last 1800s, long before the advent of pre-made or frozen pie crusts.  So I have no idea who it was that thought pie was easy, or why they thought that.  What I do know is that they've never made pie.

Pie is hard, folks.  You have to mix up all the ingredients to form a dough, then roll out the dough into the top and bottom crusts (not always applicable, since a Pumpkin pie usually has no upper crust, but you get the idea), mix up your filling, which usually involves some form of cooking other than just piling fruit into a bowl, transfer your crust into a pie pan without breaking it, loading the filling into the crusted pan, transferring the second crust (sometimes involving weaving....I've totally done that, too), trimming and crimping edges, baking, wrapping the crust edges with foil to prevent burning, and then finally, you get to the eating.  This is a lot of work.  Sure, most of the time it's totally worth it (seriously...who's ever had a really bad piece of pie?), but it's anything but easy.  Sadly, I'm forced to Call Bunk on things being as easy as pie.