Mary Novaria

Instead of the usual weekday routine, on the day before Thanksgiving, my morning reflections are inspired by the baking of pies. I creep downstairs to a quiet kitchen, put on the kettle for tea, and open the refrigerator to remove the pastry dough I made the evening before and carefully wrapped to chill overnight.  Before peeling and cutting the fruit, I reach for my phone and open the app for our local NPR station. The news is grim. Mass shooting. Again. This time in Virginia. Just days after the one at Club Q in Colorado. Guns, I think, are as American as apple pie. But pie shouldn’t be tainted by senseless murder.  I turn off the news and put on the new Taylor Swift. Nope. A podcast. Ugh. None of it is right. Restless, I lean into the quiet and let the silence speak as I pick up the paring knife and get to work on the apples.  Lime green gets all the attention, but the peel of a Granny Smith is a thing to behold, as bright and crisp to the eye as its flavor is to the p...

Not really me!  Apple pie is my go-to dessert for John, although I confess I don’t make it very often. Life gets in the way. We get busy, I get lazy. Plus, who wants the temptation of that second slice before bed or (horrors!) a piece for breakfast in the morning? And, honestly, coring, peeling and slicing all those apples is kind of a pain, not to mention the floury clean-up afterward. So pie baking, for the most part, has been relegated to special occasions—Thanksgiving (pumpkin), Valentine’s Day (I can make a cherry pie, Billy Boy!) and Father’s Day (apple, natch). I sometimes gift my brother-in-law with Lemon Meringue for his birthday, and my friend Jeanie and I are mad for Key Lime. But John loves apple, so once in a while he is deemed deserving—because he’s been working too hard or traveling too much or has been putting up with me—and I surprise him with one. Last Sunday was one of those days. My mom hung up her apron a couple of years ago, but she once was a champion...