Aside from a few detours into sweet pastry and no-bake cookie pie crusts, Penelope has been making her Ultimate Pie Crust for years. Then she made the pie crust from the Zen Master’s Apple Pie recipe. Flour, salt, butter, and water. It doesn’t get more basic than that. And was it ever delicious! But […]

Sometimes Penelope likes to blind bake a few pie crusts at a time. But what to use for pie weights? She was never really crazy about the dried kidney bean solution. Or rice. It was always a pain to get the last few beans or grains out of the crust. Sure, there are lots […]

Lisa Achatz from Atlanta tells Penelope…“My pies always seem to come out better when I wear an apron when I bake. Is this just weird superstition?”Not at all. Being in the right outfit is totally aligned with being in the right frame of mind. You wouldn’t get on a horse wearing a tutu any more […]

The best way to celebrate a first real job, a relationship milestone (vs. millstone), or the purchase of a landmark decorating item (a sofa not from a garage sale) is with a piece of warm quiche and a glass of white wine. Quiche is simple, festive and so grown up. And when everything on […]

When people say, “It’s as easy as pie,” they’re not really getting it right. Simple is not always easy. Basic pie crust may have four main ingredients (flour, water, butter, and salt), but that doesn’t mean the perfect pie crust is only four ingredients away. Things take time to learn.But the thing about […]

“The picture looked so good in the cookbook, I had to try the recipe.”And thus begins so much pie heartbreak. The thing about making anything tasty (or getting somewhere eventually), is having good directions. It’s helpful to tell someone that the dry ingredients go in the big bowl so that four steps later you’re not […]

For those of you who might never go to Provence because your boyfriend somehow ended up on the no-fly list, or because your boss would never give you two weeks in a row off without rescinding the company’s matching funds on your 401k, there’s always confectionary travel.In some ways it’s better because there’s no chance […]