Bad Pie: Baking Therapy Goes Awry

I don’t do pies. As a fussy child, I wouldn’t eat them at all. Something about the hardness of the crust and the softness of the insides. I grew out of that. Sort of. Given a choice, I will always choose cake. But these days, with so much time alone at home, sometimes I stop working, turn off Netflix and my online puzzles, and bake. I had purchased a box of prefab crust on a whim, and I had all these apples I had intended to eat for snacks, but I had eaten chocolate chip cookies instead, so . . . Below is the result, which led to deciding “Bad Pie” was a great title for a poem.

BTW, if I have to eat pie, I prefer marionberry or chocolate creme. How about you?

Bad Pie

I don’t know why I bought the boxed pie crust.
Seeking something different, I guess. I don’t
usually make pies. I’m more of a bread baker.
The box sat in the fridge for weeks while
the apples sagged a little more each day until
I decided to combine the two for breakfast.
How different is pie than a turnover, fritter
or coffee cake? It’s all pastry dough and fruit.

I dug deep in the cupboard for the Pyrex pan,
lay the box on its side to read the recipe:
Perfect Apple Pie. Surely Pillsbury knows.
Unroll the chilled crust and press it down flat.
Peel and slice the apples. Peel? What for?
Apple slices, granulated sugar, cinnamon,
nutmeg. Mix, spoon it into the crust. Gently
unroll the cover, fold and flute the edges.

Cut air holes. It’s an apple work of art.
Bake 40 to 45 minutes, stopping at 15
to shield the rim with foil. But the foil
keeps slipping off, and hot apple goo
bubbles through the holes, burning
my fingers. Still, inhale that luscious scent.
Do you smell that, I ask the dog. 
She’s licking the carpet, God knows why.

The table is set, the pie sufficiently cooled.
Hot tea steeping, I cut me a giant slice,
plunge in my fork. The apple spits out
of the burnt crust, its consistency
like the box it came in, the one with the
Perfect Apple Pie recipe. The peels,
separated from the fruit, stick to my teeth.
I should have made banana bread.

What did I do wrong? I pressed, sliced,
mixed, spooned, unrolled, and fluted.
I failed at foiling, I should have peeled,
but still . . . Now I have to eat this pie. 
I bought the crust, used all my apples.
I have no one to share it, thank the Lord.
They’d choke. I’m not a fan of apple pie.
But I eat it. An apple a day and all that. 

Author: Sue Fagalde Lick

writer/musician California native, Oregon resident Author of Freelancing for Newspapers, Shoes Full of Sand, Azorean Dreams, Stories Grandma Never Told, Childless by Marriage, and Up Beaver Creek. Most recently, I have published two poetry chapbooks, Gravel Road Ahead and The Widow at the Piano: Confessions of a Distracted Catholic. I have published hundreds of articles, plus essays, fiction and poetry. I'm also pretty good at singing and playing guitar and piano. View all posts by Sue Fagalde Lick