Bada Bing!

My heart is still pounding over the feat I have just accomplished and never thought I would: I made a pie lattice!!  Yep, for pie #2-- cherry-- I felt there would be no fruit for which a lattice would be more appropriate.  And since I drove to Hood River for fresh Bing cherries at the Draper Girls Country Farm, and then crippled and stained my fingers pitting them, I figured, why not go all the way?

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.  How, you may ask, was pie #1?  You may gather from my last exuberant post that it was a pie of perfection, but it wasn't.  It was just really good, which I wasn't expecting, and which caused me to post for joy.  The things I would like to improve upon, based on my experience from pie #1:

 

1.  Crust.  I used Adam's aunt Sarah's bicep-enhancing recipe, where you cut a half-and-half-combo of shortening and butter into flour.  I thought such a workout would yield a fantastic crust, but I'm starting to think that maybe I worked it to hard.  It was a bit dense, like shortbread.  Not flaky and fluffy, like crust should be.

2.  Fruit.  Now, it's hard to improve upon the perfect flavor, shape, and texture of blueberries.  They have a musky, deep, aromatic flavor that's almost sexual, and they pop like little juice explosions when you bite down on them.  Why were these blueberries not as superb as they have been in the past?  Possibly they were a bit dry.  Possibly I added too much tapioca as a thickener.  On the happy side though, I usually produce pies that rather resemble soup, and this one was dry on the bottom, allowing for an all-the-way cooked bottom crust, and an intact, lovely slice.

If you've read this far, you've probably already examined the photos above of the different stages of pie #2.  Lovely Bing cherries direct from the fruit bowl of Oregon, Hood River (and my new home in twelve days!).  Yours truly digging pits out of said cherries with a bobby pin.  It actually worked quite well; now my nail beds are wine-red and I'm proud.  And lastly, the making of the lattice.  It's not as hard as you'd think!  I forced myself to really read the directions in the Joy of Cooking-- not something I usually do very carefully.  Let's hope it tastes as good as it looks!  Thanks to my sweet Adam for photographing on command.