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I make great pie, mushroom pie.

I used to associate this pie with creamy filling comfort. It is rich and satisfying from the mushrooms slightly creamy and the crust is perfect and flaky. It is one of the few recipes i follow exactly. it is from "Sundays at the moosewood" which has tons of amazing dishes from all over the world. Now i associate it with victory.

It happened when my friends Vargas and Tully turned on me. Yeah, two of the people I hold closest in my affections, the two I turn to when things are wrong or confusing and I need succor. I watched it happen as if in slow motion. We were going through the various desserts and their pluses and minuses. And then we got to pie, we talked about how good pie is a wonderful thing blah blah blah. I tuned out for a bit thinking about pie. I relived a berry pie I had at nepenthe overlooking the pacific ocean with my mom as we sat in the sunshine and enjoyed a brief respite from our issues. I recalled a savory pie (ok, one every day) on the edge of a picture perfect lake in new zealand. And I remembered it had been too long since I made mushroom pie. I hadn't noticed that somehow the conversation had turned to how pie is often used in 70s songs as a metaphor.

And somehow not realizing this I turned to them and said dreamily "I make the best mushroom pie". They paused and then started laughing and continued to keep goading each other on to tease me into a hopeless mess of laughter and tears.

So the next occasion I could I made mushroom pie for Vargas and the look on her face when she took a bite- and then had more - was worth it all. She HAD to say it; "you make the best mushroom pie". And she had to say it with a straight face. In the end the deliciousness of mushroom pie triumphed over the base instincts of two people teaming up to torture one of their closest companions.

It also is terrific as a main dish for vegetarians who far too often at my house end up consuming a rainbow of sides. The vegetarians in question never make fun of me for my spacey off handed remarks.

On to some notes about preparation: It will take you 45 minutes - really! - And then you bake it. When you take it out of the oven, you get a big dramatic pay off. In the winter, people will love you for making them a pie.

I am normally terrified of piecrusts, probably cause I never bothered to read the recipe on how to make it properly. But the first time I made this I was shocked. The crust is fool proof and comes together very quickly; the sour cream makes it perfect every time. If you take too long with it, just stick it in the freezer for 5 minutes. Also I put big sheets of plastic wrap over my piecrust and roll on top of that. Especially toward the end, it makes it far easier to work with. The lattice really is far simpler than you think and it looks amazing. One thing I have noticed about lattice: no matter how janke it looks when you put it in the oven it always looks good when it done.

Also, throw in as many wild and exciting mushrooms as you can. I usually d0 a crimini-shitake blend, but when I have done it with nicer more hearty mushrooms I have been happier.

Here is a great lattice how to.

MUSHROOM PIE

Ingredients for Filling:
2 cups onion, chopped
3 TBS butter
8 cups chopped mushrooms
Freshly ground black pepper
8 oz. cream cheese

Crust Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup sour cream
Flour (for coating board)

Glaze:
1 egg
1 TBS milk

1. MAKE THE FILLING: To make filling, saute onions in butter in a large skillet. When the onions are soft and translucent, add mushrooms and sauté for a few minutes until the mushrooms release their juices. Add the pepper and the cream cheese, which has been cut into small chunks. Stir cheese into mushrooms until it melts. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. MAKE THE CRUST: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. For the crust, combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the butter just enough to achieve an evenly textured, crumbly mix. Stir in sour cream to form soft dough. Generously dust the dough with flour and form it into a ball. On a heavily floured board, roll out 2/3 of dough to fit a 10" pie pan. Fit into pan and trim the edges. Add the mushroom filling. Roll out the remaining dough for about 1/4" thick - thicker than your original pie crust. Cut into strips 1 inch wide. Weave the strip in to a lattice over the filling. (or you can wimp out and just form vents, but really how often do you make pie, take an extra five minutes.). Fold the ends of the lattice under the bottom crust, pinch the edges together and either flute, or just do the thing where you stick the tines of the fork on to make it pretty.

3. BAKE: For the glaze, beat the egg and milk. With a pastry brush, thoroughly coat the piecrust. Bake at 400 degrees for 25-35 minutes until the crust is puffy and golden brown. **8 generous servings.

Beet salad and emotional musings.

When I grew up in Leningrad our biggest holiday was New Years.
This to me this is perfect holiday. In Russia it’s a lot like Christmas. Everyone gets together with close friends and family. You get presents, you have a tree, and there is even a Russian Santa Claus. Unlike Christmas, it has an air of transgression. You stay up later than you usually do. You eat more than you usually do, drink more than you usually do. And the key is: what happens at midnight is what will be happening year. So you create plenty, by filling the house with loved ones, by giving presents, by putting an evergreen in your home, by making tons of food.

The most satisfying thing is to create the table laden with goodies, and then more at midnight. Even when there were just three of us, my family still made tons of different dishes. It felt like creating luck. Which my tiny family, a bit adrift here in the suburban east coast, needed to feel.

We always had several kinds of salads and dips and pickled vegetables. There are different sorts of salted fishes and their eggs, and smoked meats. These you eat with bread, or wrap in thin pancakes with sour cream (there are the thicker, yeasty kind, which frankly are superior but they keep less well, and keeping with tradition not what the people I grew up with made). You also have fruit and candies. Often the salads and dips are different combinations of beets and potatoes and mushrooms.

Every few years I try and do it up the right way. This year, this ritual felt very important. This to me was a valiant effort against the anxiety about the future that is pervading all of our lives. Also I was mourning the loss of someone who taught me to make many of these dishes.

There was something powerful about making these dishes, about long conversations with my mom about what she and I were both serving, and how we made it. I didn’t need a list. I had been purchasing these ingredients over and over for years. I didn’t need a recipe; the food was deep somewhere in my head and hands. I know that some recipes could be improved but it was important that they get done the way my mom did them.

I usually feel sad that my guests do not have the same memories and meaning for new years than I do. Somehow, I didn’t feel that way this year. Perhaps, I tripped over that thing I know but sometimes forget. You only get this moment, these people, this house, this health, this life, this love, this joy. Next year who knows what will happen. Every occasion you get to celebrate that, even if you feel tired, or jaded or exhausted, it is your job to raise a glass or fork to it. To feed the people you love.

I made two kinds of beet salad, two kinds of potato salad, mushrooms cooked in sour cream, eggplant caviar, blini. I bought 5 kinds of pickled vegetables, tons of different kinds of salted fish, and 5 kinds f meats. At midnight, I brought out a pork shoulder with apples and cranberries and buckwheat pilaf. My good friend Vargas brought delicous cupcakes.

People told me they liked the food, which is good, I want people to feel pleasure. But I think it was more important for me that they taste it then what their opinion was. I have no good way of explaining my life and my road to get to be an American. I can tell the stories, but that isn’t my talent. The thing I can do I can put out a proper New years table, I can only truly show them what “olivie”, and baglashania ikra and “vinaigrette” tastes like. I can fire up the Christmas tree and put so many dishes on a table that you cannot see the color of the tablecloth and maybe this explains who I am.

This is my way of making the classic Russian salad “vinaigrette”, it keeps well, it is sweet, tart and tangy and satisfying. You will love it if you love beets.

Vinaigrette

• 2/3 pound beets- the cheap red beets work great
• 1/3 pound potatoes- any kind will do or use all beets
• 6 small sour pickles- the gherkins work best- you will need enough for about a half a cup chopped.
• 3 carrots - you will need enough for about a half a cup chopped
• 1/2 bunch scallions
• 1/2 bunch dill
• 5 tablespoons neutral oil.
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar.
• 2 tablespoons of the juice from the pickles.
• pinch of sugar
  
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook beets and potatoes – trust me roasting doesn’t taste right, however if you have extra roasted potatoes or carrots, it will still taste good.

• Start two pots of water on the boil when it comes to a boil, salt so it tastes a bit too salty to drink. You COULD put them in one pot but then it’s hard to have them both ready at the same time.
• Remove greens and scrub beets put in one pot of boiling water, turn heat to medium
  
• Peel potatoes, put in other pot of boiling water, turn heat to medium
• Cook both till you can pierce with a knife.
• Drain water and put back on burner to steam for a few minutes. This is optional but it makes the texture better.
• Set aside to cool till you can handle them. But not cold.

2. Cut up vegetables – in a medium bowl

• Slip the beets from skins and do a medium dice.
• Cut potatoes into a medium dice- the key is to have these the same size
• Chop scallions fine including white parts
• Chop dill fine- not the stems
• Chop the pickles about half the size of the beets and potatoes.
• Chop the carrots about half the size of the beets and potatoes.

3. Assemble salad

• Combine all vegetables and herbs.
  
• add the vinegar, pickle juice, oil sugar and salt and pepper to taste. It should taste tart, a little sweet and not too salty.
• Let flavors blend for at least half hour, taste and re-adjust, serve chilled or at room temp.