What are you reading these days?

I’ve been reading pie recipes, Cordelia’s Honor by Lois McMasters Bujold, Reading the Bible with the Dead by John L. Thompson and listening to The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan.

So the recipes first, I think.
I like to make pies and our local FFA has a pie auction every year to raise money. In fact they are auctioning pies for unreasonable sums at the very moment, at least I hope they are unreasonable sums. I like the idea of black and blue pies made with black and blue berries. They taste all right, but I mostly just like the idea of a bruised pie. In our rough and tumble kitchen there’s a certain honesty to food being black and blue.
Anyway here’s my final product after reading many recipes:
Crust
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup oil
1/3 cup cold milk

Mix first three ingredients, cut in oil, add milk. Roll out ½ of the dough between sheets of wax paper and press into nine inch pie pan. Form fluted crust if desired. Set aside remaining dough for topping the pie. Sprinkle the crust in the pie pan with two teaspoons flour mixed with ½ teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for thirty minutes or until golden. If necessary ring the pie shell with aluminum foil or flute protector to keep from burning the edge of the crust.

Roll out the remaining crust and make six wedges and some leaves or flowers or use old cookie cutters to make clever designs for each slice. This is a good crust and folks will want a bit on top as well as under the pie.

Pie
5 cups fruit (black berries and blue berries)
Juice from one lemon
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon clove
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 generous Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon flour
2-3 Tablespoons Rye flour

Wash and drain the fruit. Take 2 ½ cups of fruit and place in a sauce pan over medium heat stir in the sugar, spices, butter and regular flour. Cook on medium low heat until mixture begins to thicken, roughly 30 minutes.
Arrange the remaining fruit in cooled baked shell. Top this with cooked fruit and the cut-outs from the remaining pie crust dough. Ring the rim of the pie with aluminum foil or flute protector and bake at 375 for an additional thirty minutes or until the crust is golden.
Enjoy with ice cream or powdered sugar icing. (Sorry I didn’t think to take photos.)