Gift for dads who love pies
In our book, Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family (whew!), we tell the story about Aunt Debbie’s apple pie. Turns out a lot of readers relate to it.
Aunt Debbie is, in the Colwell family’s humble opinion, the world’s greatest pie maker.
While she happily shares the recipe for her apple pie (it’s in the book), we know without a doubt that there is one secret ingredient she keeps to herself since no one is able to perfectly replicate her creation despite having all the ingredients and following directions to a T.
In any case, for many years, three Colwell families plus assorted guests would gather at Thanksgiving. No matter how much we ate (and believe me, we were groaning more than the table at the end of the meal), we always left room for an ample piece of Aunt Debbie’s crowning achievement (aside from her three kids, of course), her apple pie.
But one year for reasons that have still not been adequately explained to my satisfaction, Aunt Debbie decided not to make apple pie!
We were all in shock.
Honestly, I’m still in shock and this happened almost 20 years ago!
I happen to love apple pie. In fact, forget wine, my dream vacation is an apple pie tasting tour.
So I think more than anything, to make me happy (although he likes apple pie too), the first Thanksgiving after we moved away from family, my husband decided to take over where Aunt Debbie had left off and make an apple pie.
I remember that first year, he used up about three dozen apples because let’s just say peeling isn’t his forte. By the time he’d wrestled the skins off and cored them, apples that started out the size of baseballs ended up the size of peas. To top it off he wounded his hands in several places.
In the end though, not to take anything away from Aunt Debbie, Steve turned into a darn good apple pie maker, though the band-aid supply and huge numbers of apples required skyrocketed the cost per pie to where they remained a special occasion treat.
The answer came not from heaven, but from a catalog.
Until the moment I spied it, I had no idea a hand cranked apple peeler existed. But once I saw it, visions of having apple pies whenever I wanted them danced in my head.
I immediately bought one (told Steve it was for his birthday-seven months in the future.). And I have to tell you that once we had it in house, my apple pie dreams came true except of course, if I actually ate apple pie anytime I wanted it (including breakfast-come on, it’s like a Danish, right?), I would be unable to fit into any clothing not made for a blimp.
The point of my ramblings is this: If your dad loves to eat apple pie, maybe you (only for his sake of course) could put together a pie making kit for him for Father’s Day. It might include a nice pie plate and most importantly of all, a peeler (which we love so much we now carry it in our Open Sky shop!)
I realize it’s not apple season, but one of the most important aspects of celebrating green is to plan ahead. Be ready! When those apples are preparing to fall from the trees, your dad will be fully armed with the best in pie making paraphernalia. Your reward will be the pie!
Can your dad make a pie to beat Aunt Debbie’s? Let us know.
