You're the cooker

I feel stabbed deep in my gut (almost robbed). but first for those who bake go to the dessert page(click on left content for desserts) I found a great site Pastry Chef and added it to the site. why you ask did I find this site because I am going to make a peach rasberry pie for thanksgiving using an austrian pie crust recipe that I have used from time to time over the years. This pie crust is unusual as it uses cream cheese as the base. Tomorrow I will put up the recipe on the desserts page. But I digress, I was stabbed and by the NYTimes no less. There was an article in the dining section of the times about the search for the best pie crust recipe. Now I know we have all experienced this hunt. However few of us have had the same exact experience. Mine was almost 20 years ago. It is a story I have told several people. It is a story about the ultimate pie crust which uses butter AND LARD not any lard BUT LEAF LARD. you can't get that very easily now adays. my story, way to long for this blog, entailed the white pages, the yellow pages, phone calls to many delis, especially italian delies. I finally found one in Queens, NY (my bourough). I trekked with my husband to the deli and had to purchase almost a half an animal's worth of Leaf Lard, I had to bring it home, render it (whew what an aroma), place it in many tupperware jars, and store it. Way too much Leaf Lard. I even had to borrow someones empty refrigerator to store this stuff over the coming years. All this for the quest of a pie crust. Why I mention this story is because someone at that NY times lived my experience almsost word for word. Quite baffling, quite eerie. But the article which aims at bringing to you a great pie crust fails to mention a favorite pie crust used by Austrians (great bakers)- the cream cheese pie crust. Rose Levy Beranbaum, a great american pastry maker, calls this her favorite pastry. I found this recipe all those 20 years ago in the same old book that referenced leaf lard for the old fashioned pie crust taste. speak to you soon. pi