Fourth of July, Revisted.

   Pie. Pie for a Summer meal. Pie is the perfect dessert for July 4th.  And the pies to the left were made for such a celebration.  The "monster" pie in the photograph is an apple pie. The other pie is a blackberry/red raspberry pie.  Both turned out well, although it was touch and go there for a bit.
   Some of you may be aware of this already, but I'm giving it to you anyway... The humidity effects the properties of pie dough.  On Saturday, when I was preparing the pie dough for the pies, it was very humid.  I always begin with 2 and 1/2 cups flour, two sticks of unsalted butter, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 cup of ice water.  The water always varies.  There is always some left over.  But on this particular day, I felt like I barely added any water at all.  And that was too much.  The pie dough was supremely tender and very hard to handle.  When I was maneuvering it into the pie plates all I could think about was that show "Cake Wrecks".  Here I was, put in charge of pie by the best cook I know (my stepmother) and what did I create.... PIE WRECKS.  Or at least, that I what I was envisioning as I patched the pie dough in the pie plate.  But they turned out just fine, thank goodness.  In fact, the apple pie was the prettiest one that I have ever made.  Helped along by the addition of a red Emile Henry pie plate.  So silly, but I had been coveting that pie plate for a while at Williams-Sonoma.  I finally convinced myself that I must have it for the celebration.  Not only is it beautiful, but it bakes quite nicely and the fluted edge makes it very easy to create a lovely pie. The blackberry pie oozed all over the crust. But that is the way of blackberry pies (at least in my experience) so it was all good.
   The pies finished a fantastic meal of barbecue beef sandwiches with homemade coleslaw on top (yum! and the coleslaw was made with grilled cabbage - which makes a difference), red potato salad,  and baked beans in a mole sauce.  Of course there was homemade vanilla ice cream to go with the pie, guacamole and hummus to start the meal and champagne.  Champagne throughout the afternoon which is lovely.
   Champagne also helped soften the blow of losing at bocce ball AGAIN!  Bocce ball is played at all of the outdoor celebrations at the parental home in Yellow Springs.  And somehow, I am always on the losing team.  It could be me, although in my defense I played rather well on this particular occasion.  I believe, that it has more to do with my grandmother.  She is an excellent bocce ball player.  She may be almost 90 and beginning to lose her mind but she can still kick some serious ass on the bocce ball court (which is actually a narrow portion of the yard located between the deck and the garden).  And she is never on my team for some reason.  I am going to have to look into that next time.  Just to make sure that the games aren't being rigged.  My dad is usually the official.  He could be rigging it. I wouldn't put anything past him!
   Even with the shattering bocce ball loss, it was quite a lovely long weekend.  It ended with a beautiful afternoon sailing on the lake where my father's sailboat has a home.  I was very thankful for such distraction after a difficult week.  We may have our own share of issues in this country but on a warm, breezy, sun filled afternoon on a sailboat life doesn't look to bad.