Classes and clubs and creative educators stitch together the lessons that improve living.
If I remember correctly, it was a blue dress with yellow rick-rack.
I made it in seventh-grade home ec, out of something simple and forgiving, like broadcloth. Two straight seams down the sides, a plain yoke, and short sleeves that gathered at the shoulders. (What do they call those sleeves now? Flutter sleeves? Maybe they also called them that way back when I attended Irving Junior High in Colorado Springs. I'm not sure anymore.) I’m pretty sure I put a sunshine applique on it, but it could have been a flower.
I never wore that dress, but my aunt thought it would be a nice “house dress” (an almost insulting term to describe a 12-year-old’s fashion creation) so I gave it to her. I don’t know if she ever wore it.
The next semester they taught cooking to girls (I think they were all girls) who had varying levels of comfort in the kitchen. I suppose there were lessons about things like nutrition and table manners and household efficiency, but I don’t remember those assignments. What I remember about that semester is we made divinity and French toast.
After the semester’s close, I made the cookies a few times at home, but I don’t really like meringue (not even on pie!) so I have no idea when the last time was that I made them. I don’t make French toast anymore either, although sometimes I like to order it in a restaurant with fresh sliced strawberries and once, a few years ago, on New Year’s morning while the Rose Bowl Parade played on the TV in the background, I made some out of slices of pumpkin bread (with chocolate and cranberries) and topped it with powdered sugar and cinnamon whipped cream.
At the same time that I was taking home ec in school, I was in 4-H. My dad made his living as a CSU Extension agent; and as such, he was in charge of the 4-H program in El Paso County and was instrumental in putting on the county fair each year. All four of his children were in 4-H, to varying degrees of involvement and success. I took knitting one year and hated it; but, determined to finish what I had started, I sat in the living room listening to the soundtrack of “Oklahoma” over and over again while I suffered over every stitch in an orange and brown scarf. In my memory (and the memories of family members who still have flashbacks to that perpetual loop of “I’m Just a Girl who Can’t Say No”), it was a long summer. But the scarf was really short, barely long enough to serve its purpose, so it must not have been that long. I got a red ribbon on that scarf, which was kind of devastating at the time, but my dad — being the gracious and encouraging father that he is — wore it all winter, even to work.
Mostly I took sewing. In a succession of projects, I made a “Quick Trick Skirt” (two seams and a piece of elastic), a flowered maxi skirt with a waist band and lace at the hem, a pair of overalls, a nightgown and robe. I remember one leader — the wife of our veterinarian and mother of my brother’s best friend — but mostly I’m sure my mother taught me.
My mother was an accomplished seamstress who also, as a girl, took home ec classes and participated in 4-H and absorbed her own mother’s lessons, but for the most part she was self taught. As a new wife and young mother, she bought a portable Pfaff that was just barely portable because it weighs, like, a thousand pounds. She used it to make clothing for her children and later grandchildren (including a midnight velvet jacket with rosebud buttons and a blue satin lining that she made while my dad was at an annual conference and while she and my sister, just a toddler at the time, were stuck in a hotel room, an accomplishment my dad still recounts every time we drive past that hotel [almost daily], still standing, still squatty, still raggedy, but recently sporting a fresh coat of peach-colored paint).
I still use that sewing machine when I sew, which is almost never — and that’s too bad. Someday, I think I will be too weak to get it out of the closet.
I never took cooking in 4-H, so it’s kind of ironic that I enjoy baking so much. My sister did, however, and she learned how to make bread. That was a good summer when our kitchen was filled with the aroma of rising yeast and our breakfast plates held big, fat slices of warm white bread. I don’t remember how successful that foray was, but I do remember that one of the kids she competed against — a big, congenial, blonde boy who also showed livestock — eventually went to work for Martha Gooch.
The other day, I was involved in a Facebook discussion about home ec education and real-life skills and indoctrination and Donna Reed and whether those classes and those goals were obsolete in today's tech-dependent age, mostly a good-spirited conversation with no real conclusions. And I got to thinking about the people who teach us the things we need to maneuver our way through life.
I don’t remember the names of the women who taught those classes at Irving Junior High School or the 4-H volunteers (other than Sally Black) who shepherded eager 8-year-olds safely around a pair of scissors and a Butterick pattern, but I continue to appreciate them and the lessons they taught me, maybe without my even knowing it. I appreciate that some lessons, like career opportunities and life skills, are designed to make a kid’s future life better; that some lessons, like history and literature, are important to make a kid a better citizen; and that some lessons, like cooperation and perseverance and confidence, just make a kid better.
I also appreciate a straight seam and a cable knit (if someone else knits it) and a flaky pie crust.
Someone taught me all that, and I am indebted to them.
The Pie
I also took an art class when I was in seventh grade at Irving, and I remember the teacher (I actually remember her being a student teacher but I don‘t recall her name) explaining to the class how to paint mountains: a layer of dark blue in the front for the foothills, and then lighter and lighter layers as the mountains get farther away. Even though I had lived my whole life in Colorado, never in a place where the mountains were out of view, I was completely, totally, 100 percent sure she had it backward, that the foothills should be lighter and the peaks in the distance should be shrouded in shadows. Now, everyday when it’s clear enough to see the layers of the Rockies through my windshield, I acknowledge that even a student teacher is smarter than a seventh-grader.
This simple Apple-Blueberry Pie is an homage to that neophyte artist and a long list of educators who left their mark. I still don’t have the layering down, but I do think the craggy plateau on the left side of the pie looks gratifyingly like Horsetooth Rock.
The recipe
The plain crust
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
¾ cups cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) cold vegetable shortening
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) cold vodka
6 tablespoons cold water, plus extra as needed
In a large bowl, mix together flour, salt and sugar until everything is combined. Add the butter and shortening; cut the mixture together using a pastry cutter until it forms pea-sized crumbs.
Pour the vodka, one tablespoon at a time, over the dry ingredients while using a rubber spatula to press the dough together. Add the water and continue to press the dough together to form a large ball. The dough should be kind of sticky. If it isn’t, add extra water one tablespoon at a time until all the dry ingredients come together. (Work the dough as little as possible to avoid a tough crust.)
Divide the dough into two ball, wrap each in plastic wrap, press into disks and refrigerate for at least an hour. (It can remain refrigerated for up to 2 days so it can be made ahead of time.)
Blueberry pie dough
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons freeze-dried blueberry powder
1 cup cold, salted butter, cut into small cubes
½ cup ice-cold water
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl, making sure the blueberry powder is mixed well.
Cut in the cold butter with a pastry cutter until small clumps form.
Add half the water and mix; then add the rest and mix until a ball forms.
Refrigerate for at least one hour before using. (This dough can be frozen if wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in an airtight container.)
Note: The depth of color depends on the amount of blueberry powder you use, ranging from a light blue to a deep purple. To achieve an even deeper color, you can also substitute blueberry juice for the water. I could not find any freeze-dried blueberry powder in our local grocery stores, so I ended up getting freeze-dried berries and then grinding them into powder in a coffee grinder. You can also experiment with colors by substituting the dried blueberries with other freeze-dried berries, such as raspberries, strawberries and mangoes.
The filling
You need about 6 cups of fruit. How you divide the fruit depends on taste and availability. For this pie, I used:
2 cups blueberries
2 lunchbox-size Granny Smith apples, peeled and thinly sliced
2 large McIntosh apples, peeled and thinly sliced
¾ to 1 cup sugar, depending how sweet the fruit is
1 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll out pastry for two pie crusts. Line a pie plate with one crust.
Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the fruit and mix lightly until covered with the dry ingredients. Heap into the pastry. Cover with a top crust and decorate as desired. Prick the top crust with a fork or cut steam holes that complement your decorations. Bake until the plain crust is golden brown and the apples are cooked through, about 50 to 60 minutes. If the crust begins to brown too quickly, cover loosely with a sheet of aluminum foil.
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