My father is a meticulous man. In my eyes he is a genius. I have yet to meet anyone as unnervingly smart and formal as my father. He has a somewhat hard demeanor. Those who do not know him well have the serious misfortune of never meeting the surprisingly silly side of him. I always found him somewhat intimidating because of that initial hard exterior that others see.
It wasn’t until recent years that my understanding of him grew significantly past the exterior, yet growing up I always knew there was something buried inside that I wanted to know. Glimpses of my father’s alternate demeanor often came in the kitchen, watching him create desserts worthy of naming masterpieces.
Growing up I always loved to watch my father bake. He is widely known, in every neighborhood we’ve inhabited, for his set of remarkable desserts. There are many, and they are always the same: Chocolate Cake, Williamsburg Orange Cake, Lemon Pound Cake (my favorite). And then there are his pies. He truly loves making pies. Every holiday, our family and various other families at church or down the street are graced with a selection of homemade pies. On Thanksgiving, the true pie holiday, there is always a debate—which pies will be kept for the family and which will be given away. This is no easy decision. Between the usual pumpkin, pecan, chocolate, lemon meringue and apple, none is outstanding above the rest. Each is delicious and homely and somehow makes the holiday sweeter for much more than our taste buds.
Not only are my father’s pies a great dessert, they are a labor of love. My father is not always an emotionally open man. I have never seen my father truly cry and can count the close calls on my hands. While he has always been a loving and caring father, his inner-emotions stay somewhat buried beneath his solid, stern exterior. Perhaps as a substitute for certain verbal expression, he gifts desserts to those he holds dear: close family friends through the years, the woman who held my mother’s hand during a heart attack, our ward Bishop/home-teacher. For them he works diligently for hours in the kitchen. He takes no shortcuts, and his devotion to the project is crystal clear. My father’s pies are a process, a ritual, and a message. His pies say, “You have helped me through struggles. You have been a friend to laugh with. You have influenced my life for the better. You have made an impact.”
My father’s pies are not only for the recipients, they are for him. His ritual of pie-making seems a genuine therapy. There is no mistaking the happiness and peace baking a pie brings him. The steps are always the same, and the set-up never changing. I recall sitting on a stool behind the kitchen bar, watching him roll out a pie crust, when I first took a mental inventory of the mandatory details. In this particular case, he was making an apple pie. Definitely an apple, his pride and joy. While my father is extremely proud of his accomplishments, his experiences, and his wife and children, I think he receives the same amount of gratification with every perfect apple pie he removes from the oven. Those pies are special to him. They are a part of him.
While my memory cannot recollect any details of the actual pie recipe, it does include the details that hold actual importance. In my memory, I see giant bowls of bright-green Granny Smiths, skins reflecting the over-head lights, waiting to be peeled. I watch the movement of a halved apple down my father’s palm as it’s being sliced into smaller pieces. I hear the 10th Anniversary Concert edition of Les Miserables booming from speakers as well as his open mouth as he sings along with Javier and Valjean. I smell the combination of cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, and flour—the mixture coating the sliced apples as they go into the hand-rolled crust. I feel the roll of my eyes in reaction to one of his cringe-inducing puns. I listen to his voice asking in a mock-defensive tone, “Would you rather your dad be an old fart who has no fun?” I watch the meticulous placement of the top crust over a mound of seasoned apples and the perfect rotation of the pie as bottom and top crusts are evenly pinched together around the rim. Most of all, I see in perfect detail, the jovial smile on my father’s face throughout the entire process.
This is the man I call my father. This baker, this goofball, this baritone. This man, who despite what a misleading exterior may convey, pours love and passion and humor into everything. Even something as simple as an apple pie. How lucky I have been, to sit on a kitchen stool, and watch the mystery and majesty of my father bake to perfection at 425°F
