Apple Pie

Since this blog is called "Filmmaking, Motherhood and Apple Pie," I thought I'd better do a post on Apple Pie, since this is the time of year when I usually attempt one. I say "attempt" because I've probably made a dozen apple pies in my life, with varying degrees of success. Our family goes apple picking almost every year, a ritual that I love. We always seem to end up going Columbus Day weekend, even though our friend whose family owns the farm, Applewood Orchards in Warwick, NY, tells us that it's too late and too crowded. Nevertheless, he always steers us to the best area with the perfect apples that always taste a thousand times better than what we get at the store. And so we invariably come home with 2 bushels of apples and I'm left figuring out what to do with all of them. It's unavoidable with two young children who love to pick them and have a daddy who's willing to carry them.

So, we decided to make an apple pie. And when I say "we", I mean the kids decided and I acquiesed. Because like most things I commit to in life, I always forget how much time it takes and blissfully dive in, realizing at the halfway mark that I'm finished, want to be done, and still have much more to do. Take the dough, for instance. Even with a food processor and three pairs of helping hands (we added a friend to the mix this year), it still takes a while to get it right. And I refuse to buy prepared pie shells. So we made the dough, I flattened them into 2 disks and dutifully refrigerated them. The kids got bored, the friend went home and I sat down for a few minutes. I thought to myself, "Now I just have to peel and cut the apples. Shouldn't be too bad." After my daughter took 10 minutes to peel one apple, my son the same, I decided I'd better do most of that myself. An hour later I finished peeling and cutting and the kids came back to help me measure the spices for the mix. Then we rolled out the dough. I never get it right the first time and always over process the dough and it never seems to stretch out as much as they say it should. But finally, we got it all put together, albeit imperfectly, and put it in the oven. The hardest part was waiting until the next day to eat it, since it needed to rest for four hours and we all went to bed before it was ready. It didn't look beautiful, but tasted great and I derived great satisfaction from doing it with the kids.

And I find myself thinking how much making a pie is like writing, or filmmaking, or editing. If I really thought about how much work I was getting myself into, I might never get started. But every script starts out a perfect film in my head. Then comes getting it onto paper. Then there's the first time you read it out loud and realize you've got so much further to go. But when it's done, it's a great feeling. And the process starts all over once you go into production and again, when you're editing. Yet each time, I dive in with the same enthusiasm that I started the pie, certain that this time, it will all come out exactly like the beautful picture in my head.