The Modern Day SAHM: Larger Child, A Fall Afternoon, and Apple Pie

The title of this blog says it all... pure bliss.
Crisp, cool Fall afternoon, laid back family time... and BAKING.
This afternoon, Larger Child and I spent some much needed quality time together baking an apple pie.

(stepping on soapbox)

This is one of those things that I feel very strongly about in my list of parenting musts: Parents MUST teach their little boys how to cook, just like parents MUST teach their little girls how to change a tire, and bait their own hooks (ahem... DAD). I think it is imperative that we teach our children ALL life skills, not just the ones that are somehow deemed "gender appropriate." The good news is, with a Nana who loves the Food Network, and a Dad who knows his way around a skillet, Larger Child does not see cooking as particularly male or female, just something PEOPLE do. (*high five* Beautiful Bald Husband!)

(stepping off soapbox)

We started with peeling the apples. We quickly learned that Larger Child needs more practice behind a peeler. Perhaps a stent in the army circa 1950 would do him some good. (Do they still call it KP duty?) Anywho, I ended up taking over after he kept petting my ego saying things like, "Mom, I bet you would be so good at this! Mom I bet you would be so much faster! Mom, my hands can't hold these apples..." I peeled 8 apples in record time, under the supervision of the wide eyed thoroughly impressed six year old by my side.

Then came making the filling. He pulled up a dining room chair in front of the stove, and got to work mixing the sugars, butter, seasonings and apples in the pot. He enjoyed stirring, but got a little gun shy when the butter popped and splattered on his beautiful bald (jr.) head.

He kept commenting on how good it smelled. He asked if the apples would be crunchy still when we ate it. He asked what it would look like. It became clear to me that this child had NEVER had apple pie before!! What a travesty!! I cannot believe in all the time he has been alive I have never made, or bought an apple pie for him. I am not even sure he can technically still call himself an American. Thank GOD he's natural born. Don McLean would be rolling in his grave.... if he were dead that is.

Then we got to rolling out the dough to make the crust. I had made the dough the night before, and allowed it to chill overnight. He LOVED using the rolling pin, and he loved the fact that I was just putting flour right on the counter.

He asked me how we would make it stand up on the sides. I said we would be putting it in a pie pan... he said, "a what??" Wow, I have a lot to teach the young padwan. We put the bottom crust in the pie pan, I taught him how to separate the egg white from the yolk (after I explained the egg white was NOT in fact the shell of the egg), we brushed the crust and added what he kept calling the "batter." I finally corrected him and said that with a pie, it is called "filling."

I decided that a lattice crust may be a bit much for the pie novices we were, so we opted for a solid top, but I let LC use a small cutter that we absolutely did NOT steal from our playdough toys and use in our baking without washing it... to cut some shapes out of the top. Then he went around the edges with a fork to seal the crust, and frankly just to make it look purdy.