Welcome to living a life of gratitude.
I'm Sarah Wiseman.
The karma of pie.
I made a pie for my family this weekend.
The first wedges of cinnamon apple were gone before the pie was cool.
It had vanished entirely by Sunday morning.
When you make a pie,
You're tying back into a long line of pie making,
Entangled back into the karmic threads of your ancestry.
At least for me that's the case.
My mother did not make pies,
But my grandmother did.
Her family immigrated from the green hills of Ireland at the turn of the 20th century,
Finding themselves somehow settled in the flats of Missouri and Nebraska.
Their red hair stood out on the plains,
Their freckles even more.
My grandmother had her first child at 16,
And nine more after that.
Six of them survived,
With the last one,
My mother,
Being born at the height of the Depression.
My grandmother kept a garden all summer long and chickens in the yard,
And this is how the family ate.
She also worked full-time as a photographer's helper,
Developing film,
Processing prints,
Doing the hand tinting that was popular at the time,
Well before the age of Instagram,
300 DPI,
And Photoshop.
My grandmother was busy,
So making a pie took on a sort of sacred event status reserved for Sunday lunch.
Her pie made early in the morning so it would have time to cool,
Only made it once to the table before it was devoured down to crumbs.
My grandmother lived on the West Coast for a while.
During this time,
When I was small,
She taught me to bake,
And one of the things we baked was pie.
There's a secret to the crust,
I've never been able to get it right,
She'd tell me,
As we chopped the cold butter into the flour.
The rolling always sticks for me,
She'd confess,
As we rolled the cold crust.
It was reassuring to have my grandmother tell me where she'd failed,
Pie-wise,
As we worked together,
Even though her crust seemed impossibly flaky,
Her rolling pin always clean.
I followed along as best I could,
Anticipation building as the oven steamed and baked,
But when it came to the taste,
I found out something interesting.
I didn't like pie,
Neither apple nor peach nor coconut cream.
In other words,
I liked the making,
But not the eating.
This weekend,
I made the pie with the help of my youngest daughter,
Now 12.
I cut the apples,
Letting the peels spiral out with delightful magic.
I sprinkled the sugar and dotted the butter,
But when we got to the crust,
It was she who rolled it out and constructed the pie,
Top layer,
Bottom layer,
Pinching the edges tight together and adding a tiny heart crust on top.
The pie was perfect,
Flaky,
Golden,
Divine.
We inherit many things from our ancestors,
Karma,
Looks,
And apparently,
Pie baking.
My daughter,
Three generations down from my grandmother,
Was a phenomenal pie baker.
What have you inherited from your parents,
Your grandparents,
Your great-grandparents?
Think back to the stories you know about these people who created you.
Look at their pictures,
Imagine their lives.
What part of them are you especially grateful for?
What still lives on in you or your children?
