wine and pie
November 26, 2008

We�re bringing wine and pie tomorrow. Now there�s a recipe for good times�wine and pie.

The wines are a big, bold Spanish red and a sweet-ish white that were recommended by our wine guy after we described P&E�s tastes to him.

The pie will be my special apple�what makes it special is the Pink Lady apples and the spice blend I use. PLs are technically not pie apples, but day-um, they really work for me. I don�t like a super-mushy apple in my pie anyway, and then there is the flavor factor�I don�t really think there is a better-tasting apple to be had. I will be throwing a couple of Golden Delicious into the mix this time, just to shake it up a bit. And using my pet blend of spices: Korintje cinnamon, nutmeg, all-spice, ground orange peel, cloves and ginger. Beats the heck out of boring old apple pie spice. It gives the pie a really deep flavor. And the other secret of course, is plenty of butter.

As for crust�I must confess that I intend to cheat. But can you blame me, when I get more compliments out of the �Pillsbury method� than I do for digging out Grandma�s recipe and messing up the kitchen?

Anyway�everything else will be P�s marvelous cooking. He brines his bird, makes a sweet-potato souffl� that rocks the house (and always makes a plain baked sweet for Spouse, bless his heart), and generally provides all the bells and whistles of a great Thanksgiving dinner.

Spending Turkey Day at P&E�s never gets us off the hook for doing the big meal at home, though. But I can�t complain, because Spouse does all the heavy lifting with that. Sometime over the weekend, Spouse and I will be popping my small, company-provided bird into the Nesco roaster, and he will get busy making pans of his lovely stuffing and putting an obscene amount of butter in the mashed potatoes. I�ll just have to handle the prep cook tasks like peeling and chopping. And make him a chocolate pie.

He was thrilled this year, when shopping for prepared stock�he found out that Kitchen Basics has a turkey stock. It has always bothered him to use chicken or vegetable stock in his stuffing. This year he�ll be happy to do it �right�.