The Tart Little Kiss: Rhubarb Pie

Rhubarb pie cooling, kind of, in the steamy summer air.

Pie can bring you back from hell like nothing else. I have this little baby to thank for retrieving me.

For those of you who napped through the national news recently, we here in D.C. spent the better part of a week in a slow, dark steam. It was hot and humid anyway–typical D.C. summer weather–but then a crazy storm hit us and left a million of us without power. As a major heat wave crested, we panted without air conditioning, refrigeration, and a number of other things that make life pleasant.

After four days in the dark and the heat, I left town (for another sweltering zone nearby). A week after the storm, I returned to a fully powered house, which was terrific, except that my air conditioner had gone on strike. Now that it’s repaired, it feels like heaven to get back to baking pies. The sassy sweet tartness of a rhubarb pie seemed like just the thing to express the combined delirium of air conditioning and pie-baking. Tomorrow, a very special person will be the first, long-overdue recipient of a CurvyMama Pie-By (named in honor of Kate McDermott, who established the practice).

I used Kate’s recipe, too, and the pie dough lessons she taught me during our blissful pie-making sessions here in my kitchen just before the storm hit.

Enough fruit to fill your pie pan…

… toss it with flour, salt, sugar and few rasps of fresh nutmeg…

… make a yummy rich crust of lard and butter…

… and you’re in business.

CurvyMama’s dancing in the kitchen to Latin jazz, in honor of electricity and wonderful dough. We’re back in business, baby!