Autumn re-runs: Making your own pie crusts is as easy as, well, pie.

This post appeared originally on 25 November 2009. I baked an apple pie on Monday and it reminded me of this scolding post from a year ago. Cooking from scratch is a passion of mine and it seems like a better idea with each passing year.

It's Thanksgiving tomorrow and in keeping with my one man crusade against convenience foods, I am dipping into my time-tested recipe box. Actually, I don't have a recipe box. I have a file in my computer that's called "recipe box" though.

I am a pie man, through and through. Few things give me the pleasure of cranking out pies in anticipation of major holidays. Thanksgiving is my day to shine thank you very much and nothing says Thanksgiving to me like a real pie or pies as the case may be. And by real I mean made from scratch.

I am a self-taught baker. My mother was a skilled cook and my grandmother too. But kitchens were woman turf and though I watched them bake on holidays I wasn't allowed anywhere near the action. It wasn't until I got out on my own that I realized that I not only like to bake, I'm actually pretty good at it.

I know, I know, I hear it all the time; "We're too busy nowadays to bake from scratch." Well, I'll be the first one to tell you that that's a damn lie. I have a schedule that would kill a lesser man and somehow I manage to cook dinner for myself every night and turn out a hell of a spread of baked goods on holidays. Nobody's too busy, but people have different priorities. Having different priorities is fine, just own that. Telling yourself that you're too busy is what makes you neurotic.

I have a real problem with convenience foods. I don't care that they're not organic or that they're mass produced. What bothers me about them is that they're tasteless. It bothers me too that I can't tell what's in something that's prepackaged. Scratch baking keeps me in control of what I put in my mouth and it also makes me expend some effort before I get a reward. Self-discipline never sleeps kids.

So here's my recipe for pie crust, the first step toward a blue-ribbon apple pie like mine. This recipe's also perfect for the bottom crust of a tartine, but that's a topic for another day. Making pie crusts is not hard, despite what everybody says. All it requires is that you pay attention. Try this, just once, and you will never buy another convenience food for the rest of your life.


2-1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1 cup of cold Crisco
1/2 cup of ice water

Put everything, including the bowl,  in the refrigerator for an hour before you start. Then mix the flour, salt and sugar together in the now-chilled bowl. Cut the chilled Crisco into small pieces and work it into the dry mix with a fork. When the Crisco and the dry mixture are blended, it will have the consistency of coarse meal.

Add the cold water in small drips and drabs and work the dough after every addition of water. After you have a quarter cup of the water worked in, slow down and start to test the dough after each time you add more water. Test the dough by squeezing a pinch between your fingers. If it's crumbly, then add more water. When it holds its shape and approaches the consistency of Play-Doh, stop adding water. Work the dough into a ball with your hands and wrap it in plastic wrap. Then put it back in the refrigerator. After an hour or so, cut the ball into two halves. The amount above will yield more than enough dough for a two crust pie.

Happy Thanksgiving!

No phishing

As a public service, I thought it would be a good idea to illustrate what phishing looks like.

This e-mail arrived this morning and it stinks to high heaven. Never mind that the request is absurd and rife with sloppy grammar. Official Google correspondence never comes from a Gmail address.

As a side note, if you have a Gmail address, be sure to register it fully with Google. Google will shut down a Gmail account if its security has been breached. Once that happens you're screwed unless you filled out the contact information completely by associating a mobile number or alternative, non-Gmail e-mail address.

Should you find your Gmail account's been shut down there's a procedure in place to identify yourself and get it unlocked. Google will send you a message and on it will be a link that tells Google you want to claim your account and get it unlocked. Once they know you want to get back into your account, they will send an access code via text message or e-mail to a non-Gmail address. If they can't get that access code to you you're in for a whole lot of heartache. So if you're a Gmail user, add a mobile number to the account.

If they have a mobile number to work with, it takes about five minutes to get an account unlocked from my experience. Register those accounts!

Interesting mosaics from VetroVivo

VetroVivo is an Italian company with a new idea.

Their mosaics made their debut at Cersaie this year and I just found out about them the other day.

Their glass mosaics come in 18 individual shapes and there are 53 colors available in the entire collection. These mosaics have to be designed and they have to be set piece by piece.

It's an interesting idea and I like the fact that the grout plays as big a role in the appearance of these mosaics as do the glass pieces.

But in order to pull off some of the designs shown on their website, you'd end up skim coating an entire wall or surface with grout. You'd use a sanded grout obviously but I'm left wondering how well  wide swaths of skim-coated grout hold up to use and time.

Aside from that, these mosaics are really beautiful. Don't you think?

Would you install these VetroVivo mosaics in your own home?

The Queen won't friend me back

The other day I sent a friend request to Her Royal Highness, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. It was a gesture of good faith and I looked forward to witty exchanges about Welsh Corgis and ingrate relatives. But alas and alack, I just learned that the Queen's not going to be responding to friend requests.

Madame, you wound me.

Here's another great ad campaign, this time from Merillat

Yesterday, I was Tweeting with the great Leah Thayer from Daily 5 Remodel. Leah interviewed me on Tuesday on part of a webinar series she's putting together about social media and the remodeling industry. Part of the sidebar conversation we were having on Tuesday dealt with remodeling industry marketing and advertising and we were continuing in that same vein on Twitter.

I have a relationship with a couple of Masco Brands, most notably Brizo Faucets and KraftMaid Cabinetry. In spite of that I can say without reservation that Masco Brands position themselves exceptionally well and as a whole they are in the forefront of whatever market segment those brands find themselves in.

Leah pointed out to me a video Merillat Cabinetry produced last year and one I'd all but forgotten about. The video in question is a fantastic example of a marketing video done right. Here it is.






Merillat made that video to introduce a contest they ran through 2009 called The Good Life Contest. People were encouraged to make a home video about what The Good Life means to them and the winner would be rewarded a complete kitchen makeover.

The contest went on for the better part of last year and the winning family ended up with the kitchen of their dreams. It was a pretty heart warming promotion.

But I keep coming back to this video. It's really great work and it does a great job of talking about cabinetry indirectly. Merillat's not a brand that's in the headlines very often but for this video and The Good Life contest the ought to be.





So what do you think? Is this kind of indirect marketing effective? Do you think it works? I don't have a dog in this particular race but I think it's an interesting topic. Is Merillat onto something?