On Piecraft

Ah Autumn, the time of year when relatives feel obliged to feed me pie. But that pie is nowhere near enough for my purposes and so I have learned the forgotten art of Piecraft or Piesmithing.

We all know that the invention of Pie is one of the best things ever to happen to mankind, second only to the inventions of the printing press, gramophone and internet. But obtaining a Pie is not always easy, either one must purchase a usually stale Pie at a store or one must annoy a grandmother, aunt or similar relative until a Pie manifests itself from an oven.

However strange as it may seem, it actually is possible to craft a Pie yourself.

First , you must go to a Food Librarys and buy (with money) a refrigerated raw pie crust, 6-7 "Granny Smith" apples (the sour green kind), sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, butter and a Pie tin. When you get home, you must peel, core and slice the apples. This is a long and boring task but it's a lot easier if you blast Children of Bodom, Einherjer, Nightwish, Iron Maiden or something like that while you work. Try to make the slices rather thin. If they're really thick your Pie will be crunchier than mine and therefore less awesome, metal and deadly than mine. As soon as you slice up an apple, put the slices in a bowl full of lemon water (about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for a medium-sized mixing bowl of water) to keep it from turning brown and disgusting while you butcher the other apples.

When you're finally done slaughtering all the apples turn on the oven and set it to 425 degrees Fahrenheit (about 218 Celsius for some of you guys). The oven needs time to get hot before you put the Pie in.

Then scoop the apple slices out of the water and into another bowl. Put ¾ cup of sugar, ½ a cup of flour, ½ a teaspoon of nutmeg, ½ a teaspoon of cinnamon and a little tiny pinch of salt into the bowl with the apples and mix it until it turns into apples in a sauce.

Put the raw pie crust into the bottom of the Pie dish, dump the apples into it and "dot with butter" (which is Pie-speak for "cut about 5-6 little chips of butter and scatter then around on top of the apples"). Put the other crust on top of the Pie and pinch the edges of the two crusts together.

Now you must "vent " the Pie. If you don't, then the steam from the cooking apples won't be able to get out of the Pie and the Pie might explode. Explosions are awesome (of course) but not if they make it so you can't have your pie and have to clean an oven. To "vent" the pie, take a sharp little knife and carve your name in runes in the top of the Pie. If you don't know runes you can use some other archaic alphabet or even Modern English letters (or if you're a complete looser you can just cut some little slits and have done with it).

Put the Pie in the oven and go find something to do for 40 minutes that doesn't involve Pie. If you constantly peek at the Pie while it's trying to bake the Pie will get annoyed with you and take longer before it's done. After 40 minutes come back and peek at the Pie. The crust should be the colour of a baked Pie and you should see seething bubbles of apple blood welling up from the Runes. If the Pie doesn't look like this then it's not done, close the oven and leave the Pie alone for about 5 minutes. Check back every 5 minutes or so and when the Pie is done take it out of the oven and let it cool off for about 15 minutes, this is annoying but unless you like squished Pie and burnt hands you have to let the Pie cool off (Mothers and bakery peons say to let it cool for more than an hour but that's only because they're evil and like to watch you suffer and writhe as while you wait for Pie).

You now have a Pie with your name on it (literally) and are more awesome than the other n00bs.