"A heavy hand and a foot for pie crust". Pie crust was one of the few things my mother admitted she couldn't do. Old New Englanders called it "a heavy hand for pastry." She said that in her case, one foot must be heavy as well.

Harold McGee to the rescue! From today's New York Times:

"The goal of pie crust is to create thin, even layers of fat and flour," he said. "That's what makes them flaky. But the usual method isn't really optimal for that."

Instead of using his fingers to rub globs of fat into flour, then dribbling in ice water, Mr. McGee starts with square chunks of cold butter and a pile of flour on a board. With a rolling pin he presses and rolls the butter into the flour, flattening it into thinner and thinner flakes. Occasionally he scrapes the mixture into a bowl and freezes it for five minutes, to keep the butter from melting. Since the gluten is not activated until the water is added, there is no worry about overworking the dough, even though the process can take some time.

Finally, to add the water Mr. McGee fetched a plant mister. "I always found it was hard to get the water evenly into the dough" he said. "So I measured how many sprays of the mister it takes to get half a cup of water — it's 150, by the way..."

McGee is promoting the new revised edition of his scientific cookbook, On Food and Cooking. I definitely want one!

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In recent news, PR blogger and newlywed Steve Rubel says that 15 bloggers were hired to do "product placements" for various companies. FWIW, I'm not that kind of blogger. When I blog about books (or boots) it's for fun, not profit.

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[Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?]

6:05:29 PM