Pies make me happy!

I love pies! When the bakery was open, I would hand roll the pastry for hundreds of pies and make the fillings. One of my favourites is cherry pie, but not just any cherry pie, I want a great big sweet dough that tastes almost like a biscuit and melts in your mouth and inside I want Montmorency cherries that are so sour that you don't want them fresh. They are best in a pie with lots of organic cane sugar and a little bit of corn starch just to make them perfect when they are cool enough served with some Devonshire clotted cream.

But that is not the only pie I love! There is the sweet creamy filling of a pumpkin pie with traditional english spices made for Thanksgiving served after a huge Turkey and just before days of clubhouse sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey casserole and every other turkey leftover idea you can find in books and online. 

Then there is the delicious tarte au citron that Melanie gave me the recipe for. I have to say that there is nothing quite like a french lemon pie and a lemon meringue pie is NOTHING like it! Lemon meringue pie was not one of those pies that I craved when I went wheat free (in 1985) and I was okay not eating them, but the tarte au citron is so full of flavour and not too sweet and it doesn't look like the cloud of the meringue slipped into lemon jello when you cut it open. 

My Dad loves the strawberry-rhubarb pies that we did at the bakery and I have always made mine the same. He always tells me that it has enough rhubarb. Not too much, and not too little like most of the ones he has tried in Canada. Again, it is not too sweet. 

Raspberry pie was one that I had never made before I met Christine. She told me about raspberry pie and I had never heard of it. It seemed so foreign to me. I had raspberry jam tarts so I am not sure what seemed so strange about it, but it was a new one for me, but, it being her favourite, I was going to make one and I wanted it to be damn good!!!

That was not the strangest pie for me to make though, The strangest pie for me to make was a very common and traditional pie. Apple pie. I discovered that I was allergic to apples when I was 17 and have not eaten one since. I don't really miss them, I'm not even sure what they really taste like. However, at the bakery people would always ask for apple pies. so eventually with Christine's help I finally started making apple pies. She would make the filling and taste it and adjust and make it absolutely perfect. I would then roll out the pastry and scoop this mass of apples and organic cane sugar and cinnamon and then cover it with another layer of my favourite sweet dough. We would put these in the oven and the smell of them was like that of a log cabin on a wintry day where you are all sitting at the table next to the fire with a warm cup of tea. Funny how I had such an image in my head with the smell of these pies that I could never eat. 

Now that the bakery is closed and I am not rolling out hundreds of pies, I am playing more with pies and one of my most recent pies was the one above in a happy face. What a delight it was to present to a friend, a smiley faced pie. I am quite sure that I will show people how to do that at my upcoming workshop on pies. A pie that makes you smile twice!

VIA Rail and Coffee

This year Christine and I took the train from Montreal to Vancouver. We wanted to go see her family in Quebec this summer and she took the train 2 weeks before me and I arrived by plane on August 15th and then we were scheduled to go back by train leaving on August 25th arriving back in Vancouver on August 29th.

Christine next to the train

We talked all through the start of her trip until she got into Ontario where there appears to be no internet and wireless access. However, she did tell me a few things about the train ride and one thing she warned me about was the coffee.

On the train going through Ontario

Not many people drink coffee the way I do. I take a dark french roast, I grind it fresh and then put it in my stovetop espresso maker. It makes about 4 shots of espresso and then I warm up the cup and add organic cane sugar and coffee cream to get it just the right colour. I remember asking Rick at Continental coffee (Commercial Drive and 2nd in Vancouver, BC) if I should try a lighter roast and he said, "Janet, if you like your coffee burnt, just have it burnt." So, I have stuck to the Dark French roast and never looked back.

I also travel with my stovetop espresso maker. If I could I would knit it a little waterproof travel bag, but knitting and waterproof don't go together. At Christine's parents there was a coffee grinder, so that was not an issue, but on the train, there is just hot water and no stove for me to put my coffee maker on and the coffee that is available on the train is not bad, it is just not, well, the kind of coffee that will kick your butt in the morning and sending you running down the halls ready to take on the world, like mine is. So, we needed a solution. There was no way I was going to survive 4 mornings with a gentle reminder that coffee was a distinct possibility somewhere in the world. I need my "woohoo, good morning, time for a ride" cup of coffee. Full of flavour attitude and the distinct possibility that scotch is the only "stronger" flavoured drink you can find. That is my kind of coffee.

So, we decided to try the Starbucks coffee in the little envelopes. I got a Dark French and a Mocha version and Christine got the Columbian. We were so impressed. It may not be quite like at home, but that was a damn good cup of coffee with a beautiful fresh flavour. It wasn't until the last day on the train that I realized that this Starbucks coffee was called VIA.

I am easily amused and this discovery totally amused me. So I had to take this picture and I will say if you like a good strong cup of coffee and you are planning a cross Canada train ride, grab some VIA for your VIA rail vacation. Both the train ride and the coffee were fantastic and they go together!!!