Pie is going to be my next nemesis, I believe. Well, pie crust, that is; I think I can grasp the fillings pretty well, as that’s just cooking.

I’ve never been much of a baker, with its precise measurements and sciences of leavening and all that. I’ve been starting small, with pizza crust (very forgiving) and tortillas and maybe a little bread here and there. But what I really like to eat is pie: pie with a light and flaky, melt-in-your-mouth crust. We have an amazing bakery in this town that’s given me a goal. I want to make pie crust like they do.

Last time I tried, it was a fiasco. This time, I thought I’d try some different techniques. Someone gave me a scrap of marble countertop to roll pastry on. I have a neat cast iron pie plate. A girl in the office brought in apples from her tree.

Not being able to find my shortening was a bad sign. I should have stopped right there, but the apples were all cut up and I didn’t want them to go all brown on me. I had bought some lard for the next phase of the experiment, so I substituted that. It was delightful to mix, and my hands are all smooth and soft now, but I think it should have been a little colder. It rolled out as thin and pretty as you please, but refused to budge from the board.

Five times, I tried, each time getting more frustrated and mixing it back together each time. I put it in the fridge to set up a little. That just gave me big cracks. I put more flour on the board; no go. Finally, I rolled it onto a tea towel and flipped it into the pan that way, but by then, it wasn’t any sort of pleasing circular shape.

OK, whatever. I did up the filling, dumped that in, and realized that I wasn’t going to be able to flip the container upside down for the top crust. Whee. I ended up doing that one on the towel too, and kind of rolling it out onto the filling.

What I have in the oven at the moment is the world’s ugliest pie. I was so frustrated with it that I didn’t even stop to take pictures, but if it’s really horrifying when it comes out, I promise that I’ll add one.

There, see:

The kids are willing to taste test each piece, they say, but they haven’t seen the finished product yet. I may scare them. We’ll call it a Halloween pie, I guess, and move on to the next attempt. Possibly in 2013.