In Praise of Apple Pie

Sam Sifton wrote a nice piece on apple pie in the Times magazine this week. It opens with a great quote from David Mamet:

“We must have a pie,” [Mamet] wrote in “Boston Marriage,” his 1999 play about Victorian women struggling not to talk like Mamet characters. “Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”

I also love how he described the pleasure of the all-American dessert:

“Apple pie is a weekend project to slow the baker’s heart rate and restore belief in happiness. The scent of fruit softening, kissed by cinnamon, of buttery crust, of sugar caramelizing — these can combine into a fragrance of redemption for the cook and everyone else. The taste delivers bliss.”

Of course, I would’ve loved it if he was profiling my apple pie instead of one by Kieran Baldwin, a pastry chef at the Dutch, a restaurant in Soho. But I’m sure hers is fantastic. I can’t wait to make it myself sometime soon.