Concord-Grape Pie

Pie filling

4 cups Concord grapes

¾ cup sugar

3 Tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Slip skins from grapes by pinching each grape-pulp into medium saucepan; reserve skins. Heat grape pulps to boiling, simmer just until pulp dissolve and seeds separate from pulp; do not let juice evaporate completely from pulp. Press pulp through sieve into medium bowl to remove seeds. Add grape skins, sugar, tapioca and lemon juice; mix well; let stand while preparing pastry.

Pastry

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch chunks

3 Tablespoons ice water

Preheat oven to 425°F. To make the pastry, stir together the flour and salt in a bowl. Use a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the butter until pea-size balls form. Add the ice water 1 tablespoon at a time while turning the dough lightly with a fork and then with your finger-tips. (Do not overwork, or it will become tough.) Gather the crumbly dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Roll pastry to cover 11 inch round, 1 inch high, loose bottom quiche pan. Use roller to trim off excess pastry around top of quiche pan to form a uniform edge around pan. Fill grape pie filling into prepared quiche pan and bake for 10 minutes; remove from oven. Reduce oven to 350°F.

Cheese Topping

1 8-ounce package cream cheese

2 eggs

½ cup sugar

Meanwhile, beat cream cheese, eggs and ½ cup sugar until smooth. Cover baked pie with cheese topping and bake for another 30 to 35 minutes until set; cool on wire rack; chill.

The pie filling and cheese topping were found in “The Good Housekeeping Cookbook”; the pastry is a French recipe for a pizza crust found in Williams – Sonoma’s cookbook “Savoring France” by Georgeanne Brennan. Pie photos by Sara; pans and strainer by fantes.com. For cooking ware web sites see my links to Williams – Sonoma and Fantes.com.

WEEKEND IN MICHIGAN

Dan Sara and I took a trip to Michigan this weekend. Dan and Sara saw the White Stripes perform at the Masonic Temple Theatre in Detroit. This picture is where the concert was held; 500 Temple Street, Detroit, Michigan.

After I dropped them off at the theater I drove down Cass Avenue to find a Starbucks where I could spend three hours until it was time to pick up Dan and Sara. The Starbucks was not open; Detroit does not have the foot traffic to keep business open after 5:00pm.

Detroit is an interesting place. Whenever I am in the city it always looks like a gigantic modern ghost town regardless of the time of day. I ended up driving up Woodward into Ferndale, nine miles north, where Diane and I once lived and parked in a parking lot, that now belongs to a strip-mall but in 1979, it was the living-room of the house we rented. It was a strange feeling sitting in my car where once I would have sat in our house.

“Back in the day” as Dan and Sara say, we worked at a shelter in Ferndale operated by the Salvation Army. The property had a large back yard filled with old oak trees where raccoons and opossums lived, and where picnics with coworkers and family were common. The Detroit Zoo is one mile north from Ferndale. One night we were woken from our sleep by the sound of something large sounding landing on the roof of our house. It crept across our house from end to end. The sound of it left our roof and went into a nearby tree. From there we could hear animal screams; then silence. Soon it landed on our roof again and off from the same direction by which it came. We were left in silence wondering what it could have been. Our neighbor heard it too but had no idea what it was. We never found out and the zoo never claimed of any missing or escaped animal.

MYSTERY DRIP

Rain?









Photo by Sara