It’s fall, and you know what that means, bitches: It’s apple pie season. I will be in the kitchen in the cutest novelty apron you’ve ever seen. I will be peeling. I will be slicing. I will be rolling. But this won’t be some lame-ass grocery store apple pie. Oh no. THIS apple pie will have a decorative lattice top.
Not your grandma’s apple pie? This is EXACTLY your grandma’s apple pie. This is the Platonic ideal of an apple pie. This pie will be made from the original recipe handed from one grandma to the next since the founding of America. You know your favorite childhood memory, the one where your grandma is pulling the pie out of the oven with those oven mitts with roosters on them? THIS IS THAT PIE.
I will be cutting shortening into flour and sprinkling it with ice water to create a pastry so flaky your mouth has an orgasm just looking at it. This pastry tears if you so much as breathe on it. Grown men weep at the thought of handling this pastry, but I will be cutting it into uniform strips and weaving them into a lattice. Over and under, bitches.
You want to talk about crimped edges? I will crimp the fuck out of the edges. You motherfuckers know how you crimp the edges of a pie? You pinch one side with your thumb and forefinger and then you press the other side with the forefinger of your other hand. And you bet your ass I’ll be lining that crimped edge with aluminum foil so it doesn’t overbrown in the oven. But a crimped edge means nothing if your pie doesn’t have a lattice top.
And don’t get me started on apples. This pie won’t contain those shit-tasting mealy-ass Red Delicious apples. Oh no. This pie will be peak season Northern Spies. Oh, you’ve never heard of the Northern Spy? That’s why you’re a weak-sauce baker. It holds its shape and doesn’t turn into mush in the baking. You’ll be able to see every perfect slice through the holes in my flawless lattice top.
You think you can get away with rolling out a top sheet of pastry and cutting a decorative steam hole in the shape of an apple? Fuck off. You can brush melted butter on it to give it a golden brown finish all you like, but everyone knows you’re a pussy who doesn’t know how to make a lattice. And what about Dutch apple pie? More like shit apple pie! You think you can distract people with a delicious crumb topping of butter and brown sugar, but the only thing they’re going to be tasting is failure. Because there are only two kinds of apple pies: Pies with a decorative lattice top and pies that are bullshit.
Unless it’s one of those apple pies with big sugar crystals on top. Those are cool.