Tales From
The Oak Tree Kingdome
Sven Baked an Apple Pie
Chapter 1
“What’s that old crow looking at?” I pointed to the kitchen window. “He’s passing judgment again.”
Sven glanced up. The crow, one of the batch who drove him crazy every time he ventured into the yard, sat hunched, staring out of its shiny left eye. Its black feathers fluffed against the heat as it perched on the lawnmower’s handle.
“That pie.” Said Sven. “He wants some in his dish.”
“Goodness. Put something in his dish.” My coffee hadn’t kicked in yet, and I caught myself sounding querulous. The pie adventure, along with the crow, wore me out.
That pie . . . .
I was so tired last night—but Night-Bird-Sven was bright-eyed and ready for me to teach him how to make that apple pie. There was no resisting him, even that late. The neighbor lady and her husband kindly raked our oak leaves before noon, and we’d decided to bake them a pie. Sven said, “My pie needs to be delivered after it cools overnight. I caved.
He's a glory-hound. A smug smile curled his mouth’s corners as he anticipated the neighbor’s inevitable saccharine voice: “Well Sven! What a wonderful thing you've done! You've made us a pie! Let me give you a big old hug.” Her nasal giggle follows.
Hmmm.
There’d be no sleep for me until I made sure that pie slid into the oven.
Here's how it went.
“Mind if I do the hand work?” His voice full of charm. “You find the recipe you've used a thousand times and guide me through the pie building process.”
He knew I'd be elbow deep, the rascal.
“Go sit down,” he said. “Watch TV.”
So I got my favorite kitten videos going on YouTube, and within seconds, his head popped through the kitchen door.
“Do you think your recipe calls for enough flour? I don't think it's enough. It's a big pie. I peeled twice the apples the recipe called for.”
The kitten meowed for its mama on the TV screen.
I gave Sven a weak smile.
“Follow the recipe twice. You'll have enough.”
Three minutes later:
“Can I use the food processor instead of cutting the butter in with this masher thing?”
My patience sent out smoke signals to the universe.
Sven's a chef.
He can cook anything.
He gets his five-pound, Test Kitchen recipe book and opens it on the counter for cooking, and the food never fails to come out as promised. In spite of his Dutchman stubbornness, he follows those recipes like the book is the KJV version of the Book of Revelation.
Doomed if he doesn't stick to the recipe.
Whereas and wherefore, when he uses one of my recipes, there's fear of vast wrongdoings because I'm not a test kitchen cook.
I'm a farm girl cook.
I follow the recipe my mom taught me seventy years ago. The one she got from her grandma. The one my family has used since the Crusades to the Holy Land.
No.
This recipe isn’t to be trusted.
I gave him a flat stare.
“Use the food processor. Run it for a couple of pulses with only the flour and salt. Cut the butter into small pieces. Then pulse in bursts until the whole thing looks like a bowl of flour-covered peas.”
Noise erupted in the kitchen.
Something banged.
I stayed put with my kittens as ordered.
Next:
“I put ice water in it. It doesn’t look right. You'd better take a look.”
I put the kittens on pause and sauntered to his side.
“What? How much flour did you use?”
“I doubled it.”
“For one pie?”
“Yeah. I peeled fourteen apples, remember?”
“Well, okay. Um, did you compensate with more butter?”
By midnight, I was elbow-deep in the flour bin.
Getting a dough ball cooled, the apple filling cooked, the oven hot...
Those chores His Highness and I did together.
His insistence on my wrongness caused a red-faced war inside his head.
“Surely she’s mistaken!”
The dough turned out perfect.
The filling turned out unbeatable.
Next, time to roll out the pie crust.
Oh, my goodness.
He fell apart.
No chance he’d handle that shell on his own.
As I helped get the dough ball ready and the roller placed, I chanted:
“You’re doing this exactly right. Just go slow. Let the dough do its thing. Push from the inside out. Yay! You knew you could do it!”
Finally, the bottom crust slid into the oven for a little pre-bake.
It took forever for the crust to reach the exact brownness I required.
I mean, he requires.
Since our oven is old and some lights don't work, I use the preset Bake button. It sets the correct temperature, and off I go.
Not His Royal Highness. He must punch the temperature in on a keypad that no longer lights up. So he guessed he had the right temperature.
Forty-five minutes later, we’re still looking at a wet bottom crust.
“Did you use the Bake button or punch in the temperature?” By now, the pie wasn't baking because I’d done something wrong.
The recipe was wrong.
The way we rolled it out was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
“I used the number pad.”
“Okay. I'll fix it.” I started the entire sequence over, and this time, I punched the Bake button.
Sven gave me an evil look and turned it off. Then he punched the numbers into the keypad. “I like doing it this way because I need to know what the temperature is.”
The pie shell finally turned a beautiful golden color, proving he'd gotten the temperature right.
I grinned at him.
“Look what you did! It’s beautiful! Now we have to let the crust and filling cool. Everything’s hot and putting it together now will make the butter melt out of that bottom shell. It’ll end up as a big pan of oily flour under your hot apple filling.”
He glanced sideways at me like I’d somehow managed to do something right.
“Are the apples in the filling done enough?”
I looked at his pan of warm apples coated with cinnamon and sugar, forked a bite. “Still too crisp, but you don’t want them fully done. You'll be putting the top crust on and sliding the pie back into the oven to bake, so leave the apples a little under done.”
“What if I put them on a flat tray and spread them out and put them in the oven to bake a little while the crust cools?”
Aha.
My Sven at his best.
So I said, because he expected it: “Well, I don't know. We don't want them too done. I’d put them into a frying pan . . .”
“I’m putting them on the tray.” He spread the apple bits.
My smile twitched. “I’ve got to sit down a minute or two and watch my kitten show. The apples will be hot when they come out, and we'll have to cool them off again. The bottom shell is already cooling.”
A few minutes later, his head appeared around the corner again.
“Come test these apples to see if it’s time to take them out.”
We took the apples out, and they were perfect, which is the only way Sven does things. But now they had to cool.
“Time to roll out the top crust.” I said. He plopped the dough ball onto the flour-laden parchment paper on the countertop and shoved the roller into it.
“This is tougher than the other one.” His tone demanded my explanation . . . how could I let this happen?
So I explained.
“The butter in your dough has turned hard from being in the fridge for an hour. Go easy with the roller and try not to shove the dough around too much or it’ll turn tough.”
He gave it all his might. The parchment paper slid under the pressure and turned. I grabbed the edges and held it, but off it went into the sink, right into the bowl of ice-water he’d set out for the mixing process.
No!
We both grabbed for the tough dough ball.
Paper towels to the rescue! We gave it a new dusting of flour and stopped to analyze.
“What’d we do wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything's perfect. It just needs a tiny bit more warming. And more flour.”
Sweat poured from his forehead as he worked the ball one more time.
He finally got a flat surface.
One more swipe with roller . . . .
By the time the filling reached the right not-quite-warm temperature, we had a round crust rolled out, waiting for the coronation of His Highness's apple pie.
We looked at each other and laughed.
“Let’s do this!”
He folded the soft crust in half.
I slid my fingers under one side.
He slid his fingers under the other.
Like the team we strive to be, we lifted that crust over and placed it on the pie.
He'd peeled fifteen apples. I prayed our crust’d cover that mountain he’d scraped into the pie pan.
It fit exactly. With a couple of trimmed scraps left over to make cinnamon-sugar crust cookies.
“Sven, I’m going to bed now.” My knees felt wobbly.
We’d gotten the top pie shell on and breathed a sigh of relief.
Together.
Without fussing.
Without argument.
We’d climbed the apple mountain and placed its crown.
“Go ahead. I've got this.” He grabbed the pastry brush and applied the whipped egg, making sure the pie came out golden brown.
This morning, I shuffled into the kitchen in my fluffy socks, looking for coffee.
And there it sat.
That pie.
Golden brown.
Not a single drop of boiled-over filling.
A glorious sight with the hood lights beaming down on it.
“Sven?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s gorgeous! You did it! They’ll love it.”
“Yeah!”
“Do you want coffee?”
“Yeah.”
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More tales from The Oak Kingdom are on the way.
The crow insists this is only the beginning.
One of the nicest things about meeting new readers is discovering which stories or styles speak to them. If you’d like to sample my novels, I’ve shared several free chapters on their book pages. Read as much or as little as you wish.
