Easter and eggcellent eating

One of the things I most love about this time of year is the extraordinary display of rebirth everywhere. New shoots burst from the garden soil each day, growing rapidly in the sunny warmth. Peonies and astilbe, columbines and hydrangeas, bee balm and bleeding hearts...each year I wait for some and am surprised by others, but always I am thrilled by their responsible perennialism. Hello again, dear friends. Thank you for returning, as you always do.

Indeed the beauty and promise in this cyclical nature of, well, nature, is the way I plan to think about Easter in the future. It is a day of rebirth anyway, so I'll simply embrace and celebrate in a way that resonates with my beliefs. And because bunnies are natural creatures, I see now that the Bunny can fill my boys' baskets each year without conflict. 

Easter cake: strawberry with whipped cream-mascarpone frosting

We spent yesterday with Tom's parents and a cousin who lives in DC too. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and after an egg hunt, we ate a delicious lunch (which included that stunning strawberry cake with whipped cream-mascarpone frosting) and then watched the boys play and fly a kite in the field behind my in-laws house. Jack was initially concerned that he wouldn't be able to get the kite aloft, but soon enough, he'd unspooled the entire 500 feet of string.

When I wasn't smiling upon the pride emanating from his face, I joined the others in looking skyward, our eyes fixated on the simple joy of a colorful kite gliding confidently in the wind. 

Ol and I moseyed over to the playground that abuts the field, and he climbed the rock wall and found "stick treasures" while I sunned on a bench.

using a stick treasure to massage my feet

By the time last night rolled around, we were all so tired it seemed wise just to call it quits and hit the sack. The boys conked out early, T and I watched Going Clear, the recently released documentary about Scientology (oh.mah.gah!) and then, after a light meal, joined the slumber party.

This salad is always lovely but really hit the spot after a big lunch. Y'all try it: watercress, cantaloupe, goat cheese or feta, fresh figs or dried...It's absolutely lovely! 

Pie crust is so personal

You know how people often preference the climate in and traditions with which they grew up? Take me, for example. I was raised in the tropics of Louisiana and to this day prefer to be in the warm-hot sun, while others, from more northern climes, enjoy (or at least don't mind) wearing sweaters and cords on a regular basis. I like the way my family celebrated Christmas (gifts on Christmas Eve, Santa comes overnight, stockings in the morning, a big family lunch) versus those who wait to do everything on the 25th. Personal preferences honed over a lifetime of experience.

The same is true, I believe, for pie crust.

My family pie crust is an oil-based one with a confident measure of salt that incorporates neither butter nor lard. Nanny picked the recipe up at the Wesson Oil booth at one of the restaurant conventions she and Papa used to attend when they had their place, Frank & Bob's. Those conventions were in the 1940s and '50s, in places like Chicago, and I remember Nanny telling me how she and Papa would take the overnight train to them from Louisiana. Those conventions always sounded so grand.

my food historian pal, Laura, found this old wesson ad. see the pie crust recipe in the text. my family has always called the pie crust our "stir and roll." here's why!

Anyway, once that pie crust recipe made its way into our family, all others fell out of favor. I don't think I had one pie growing up -those made by folks in my family- whose base wasn't that simple, four-ingredient shell. Not one.

It really spoiled me, frankly, in the way that getting used to great food does. I could taste a sub-par or store-bought pie crust in a second flat. And it wasn't until I was an adult that I remember tasting butter-crust pies.

Butter-based doughs are so wonderfully pliable. They roll out like a dream and can be cut into whimsical shapes that are easy to transfer and mend. Butter crusts cook to a gorgeous golden-brown hue, and they are sturdy. I love them for savory pies and tarts, for gougères and anything that requires pâte à choux, like éclairs and cream puffs.

But I simply cannot abide by butter crusts buttressing dessert pies. In my opinion, fruit and other sweet pies need a foil, something to cut and thereby enhance their sugary insides. Butter has no bite. It is sweet and creamy, two elements that are inherently part of any sweet pie. And so the whole always tastes less to me than its discrete parts.

Surrounding a rich filling of sugar-encrusted blackberries, pecans swimming in Caro and brown sugar, chocolate, and even lemon meringue, the butter crust tastes flaccid and weak. It is beautiful but it disappoints. It is a flabby distraction rather than a critically important partner in the dance. 

An oil crust, like my family's Wesson one, lacks some of the butter crust's pros. It really cannot be rolled out more than twice, you can't double the recipe or even make it in advance.

But oh how it flakes! How its salty underpinning perfectly offsets even the sweetest of fillings and in doing so makes everything taste that much more alive! How the whole is always more than the parts, as each lifts the pie to greater heights!

I made a butter crust for the sour cherry pie yesterday because I wanted to try yet again to make one I like and also I wanted to maximize the aesthetics. It was beautiful, but the crust again left me cold.

Lard does a better job than butter in the flakiness department, but I still prefer the flavor and crunch of that oil + salt impart. And so, henceforth, I'm swearing off the old butter crust and know I'll never look back.

Brotherly love

They are the best of friends!