As I write, I’m in Maine. I
drove up to the little house owned by my mom and Charley on Friday after work.
They are out of town and needed someone to water their plants. It’s only an
hour away. I wanted somewhere to write.
I’m sitting at the picnic
table in their back yard. It’s warm out, but not too warm. Ants are crawling
along the wooden boards; the occasional wasp buzzes by my head. I can see the Piscataqua
River, fast-moving to my left. It’s windy, getting windier by the minute. The
leaves are rattling in the trees. Rain, I think, is moving in. The air smells
briny and damp.
The last time I was up here
in Maine was Memorial Day weekend. My brother, Ben, and his girlfriend, Ashley,
had joined us from New York. It was fun. My mom made us go kayaking. My brother
made us a little drunk. I cooked. Fully embracing the occasion that Saturday
night, I went for the traditional: Burgers. Salad. Strawberry-rhubarb pie.
I’ve written about this particular strawberry-rhubarb pie before. It’s the pie that I developed for the
New York Times when they ran an article about my book, just about a year ago.
When I was developing this recipe, I made a lot of pies. So many pies that by
the time I clicked “send” on the email to the editor containing the recipe, I
was pretty sure that I would never want to eat pie—or anything else, for that
matter—ever again. Surprise, surprise: I was wrong.
I love this pie. It’s all warm
and spicy with fresh, crystallized, and powdered ginger; covered in a crunchy streusel
topping; and filled with a mixture of fruit that isn’t too sweet. Generally,
strawberry-rhubarb pies are a fierce reminder of my grandmother, of my mother,
of myself as a child. They taste like the past. But because I revamped this
recipe, updated it, prodded and poked and tested it, this pie tastes new. Making it,
eating it, I am entirely present. Sometimes, that’s exactly what I want.
(Just don’t forget your pie
plate when you bake this pie. Over Memorial Day weekend, I didn’t realize that
we were missing this key piece of equipment until I had already made, chilled,
and rolled the pie dough. This is why I baked the pie in a cake pan, as you can
see in this photograph, below. It kind of worked. It kind of didn’t. The pie looked
strange, but it tasted damn good.)
Right now, in Maine, this time
alone, the sun is beginning to set. I’ve moved inside, and am watching the ominous
sky, which is practically shimmering with the threat of rain. A seagull just flew past
the window, screaming, a drape of seaweed hanging from its mouth.
Lately, I’ve been reading a
backlog of the advice columns that Cheryl Strayed writes for The Rumpus called "Dear Sugar." They
aren’t typical advice columns. They’re strong and sassy, straight-to-the-point and written with an almost
vicious beauty. Strayed is the author of WILD, the book chosen by Oprah for her
revived book club, a book that is getting a lot of play. I haven’t read this
book. But I want to. Because if Strayed’s book is anything like her advice
columns, dudes, it’s probably great.
In these columns, Strayed
writes a lot about things that I’ve been thinking about, that we’re all
probably thinking about in one way or another: love, trust, sex, money, children, identity, writing.
I’ve been thinking a lot my own writing. The future direction of my writing. What I want. What I might someday want. Who I am. Who I will be. (Yowza!) Maybe this is all because I’ve recently
finished a big project, a book project, for the publishing house where I currently work. Maybe it’s because the paperback version of my baby, my book,
is out in the world. Maybe that’s just what happens when you
throw your life up into the air, like confetti, and try and catch the
pieces—not all of the pieces, just some of the pieces, the important one—as
they fall back down.
Strayed responded to a letter from a young woman writer named Elissa Bassist in August of 2010. Now, I
can identify with some of the things that this woman wrote in her letter, though
certainly not all of them. And Strayed and I have obviously had different
experiences and taken different paths. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what
it means to be a writer, to call oneself a capital-W writer, to write, to
publish, to continue to write and publish, to feel like you have stories
welling up within you, whether those stories come from within or from the world
around you. What does it mean to be a woman in the professional world? What
does it mean to be a woman writer? What does it mean to have talent, or to have
luck, or to simply have the resolve to work your ass off?
I like what Strayed says,
here:
“Writing is hard for every
last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think
miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They
do not. They simply dig.”
I’m digging.
I also like what Strayed
says, here, this line that has become a "Dear Sugar" tagline:
“So write, Elissa Bassist.
Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.”
That’s why I came to Maine
today, really. Not to water the plants. Or spend some time by the water. But to
write. Like a motherfucker.
Gingered Strawberry Rhubarb
Pie
From me, and the New York Times
Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes
FOR THE CRUST:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
6 tablespoons butter,
chilled and cut into 10 pieces
4 tablespoons vegetable
shortening, chilled
2 tablespoons fresh ginger,
peeled and grated
1 large egg, beaten, for
glazing rim
FOR THE FILLING:
4 cups rhubarb (about 5
large stalks), halved lengthwise and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
1 pint strawberries, sliced
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
Finely grated zest of 1
orange
FOR THE STREUSEL:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour,
plus additional as needed
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
8 tablespoons butter,
chilled and cut in pieces
3 tablespoons candied
ginger, minced
1/2 cup pecans, lightly
toasted, chopped fine
Vanilla ice cream,
for serving.
1. To make the crust: In a
large bowl, whisk together 1 1/4 cups flour with the salt and sugar. Add the
butter and shortening and quickly break the large chunks apart with your
fingers until the mixture resembles very coarse meal. Stir in the fresh ginger.
Sprinkle 3 tablespoons ice water over the dough and mix the dough with your
hands, without over-handling, until it comes together. If too dry, add another
tablespoon or 2 of water. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes
to an hour.
2. To make the filling: Mix
the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, 1/3 cup flour and orange zest.
3. To make the streusel: Mix
1/2 cup flour with the brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Add the butter
and mix with your fingertips until it is broken into tiny pebbles. Mix in the
candied ginger and chopped pecans.
4. Heat the oven to 475
degrees with a rack in the middle. Cover a rimmed sheet pan with foil. On a
lightly floured surface, roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin into a
disk about 1/4-inch thick and a few inches larger than the pie
pan, pressing together if it breaks apart. Fold the disk in half and gently
place across the center of a 9-inch pie plate. Unfold. Crimp the edges of the
dough so that it ends along the rim. Press down around the edge with the tines
of a fork.
5. Mound the filling in the
center and spread the streusel evenly on top, pressing down lightly. Brush the
exposed crust with beaten egg and place on the prepared pan. Bake for 15
minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees and bake until golden brown, about 30
to 40 minutes more, checking the pie as it bakes. If the crust begins to look
too brown, wrap a strip of foil around its edge. Cool for at least 20 minutes
before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature, with ice cream.
Yield: one 9-inch pie (8 to
10 servings).
