Carol Culver - A Good Day to Pie

A Good Day to Pie: A Pie Shop Mystery 2011 by Carol Culver.

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First e-book edition 2011

E-book ISBN: 9780738727790

Book design by Donna Burch

Cover design by Ellen Lawson

Cover illustration Tom Foty/The Schuna Group Inc.

Edited by Rosemary Wallner

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Dedication

For Aunt Mary, with love and thanks for the Kimpton family memories.

Carol Grace

Acknowledgments

With thanks to my wonderful agent Jessica Faust for her encouragement, support, and her great ideas.

I swear your grandmother has a better social life than you do. From the overstuffed chair in the corner of the small commercial kitchen, my friend Kate Blaine gave me a look that was somewhere between pity and concern.

I winced, because I suspected social life was a code term for sex life. And I suspected it was true.

Everyone has a better social life than I do, I said lightly. Im up at dawn, chopping, slicing, rolling, mixing, you name it. By the end of the day I can barely make it home to collapse in front of the TV to watch the Food Network. I pointed one floury finger at the flat above the store. Good thing I dont have to commute.

To illustrate just how busy I was, I proceeded to measure and mix the ingredients for a basic pie crust.

Kate got up, poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the vintage black and white porcelain stove, and peered over my shoulder. Wouldnt that be easier with a food processor?

This is a small pie shop, not a factory, I said, shaping the dough into two flat circles with the palm of my hand. Grannie did it all by hand and so do I. Its the only way to make a good crust. One at a time. At least for now. Later, when Ive got dozens of orders to fill and a line around the block, Ill automate, but for now Im mixing the old-fashioned way. Grannies way.

Kate eyed the empty butter wrapper with suspicion. I thought your grandmother used lard.

Well, yes, but Martha Stewart and I use butter. Tastes better. But Im not a complete Luddite. See, I bought a new high-tech rolling pin. I held out my new pin with the chrome caps and the pink silicone surface. Go ahead, try it. Totally nonstick. Ergonomic. Comfortable to hold, dont you think?

Kate rolled the pin over the dough and it stuck to the silicone mat even though the manufacturer promised it wouldnt.

I sprinkled some extra flour on the dough. Roll from the middle, then turn one quarter, I said. Act quickly while its still cool. Thats the secret. Once you let the dough get warm, it gets sticky.

She sighed and handed it over to me. Some people have the touch, some dont. Ill do the eating, you do the baking. What happened to your grandmothers old wooden rolling pin?

I pointed to the stoneware utensil crock on the counter that held her scarred and battered rolling pin along with a whisk, a ladle, and an oven thermometer.

Above the stove Id hung a framed photograph of Grannie wearing a blue ribbon the year she won first prize at the county fair for her Fuji Apple Southern Pecan Caramel Pie. She seemed to be looking right at me as I rolled smoothly just as shed taught me when I was barely tall enough to reach the counter. I thought Id like having her here with me in the kitchen, I said to Kate, but when I roll out the crust, I can hear her saying, The chunks of butter are too big. Its too thick. No, too thin. Try it again. So lets put her in the window. She wont mind and maybe shell attract customers.

We were standing in the window, me in my baggy T-shirt and faded jeans covered with a large white apron with The Upper Crust stenciled in red across the bib, and Kate in her designer jeans under the Grand Opening sign trying to decide where to put the picture. The low clouds and patchy fog that are common along the California coast in summer hadnt burned off yet. By noon it would be another beautiful cloudless day in paradise. A woman with a hybrid labradoodle wearing an all-season stretch dog coat walked by and I almost lost my balance.

Oh my God, thats Mona Grimes, I said. Grannies best customer. Where has she been all this time? Since I opened the shop three weeks ago, the business had been painfully slow. Id sold a grand total of seventeen pies since I reopened the pie shop. And two of them were to Kate.

I jumped down from the window ledge, pasted a welcoming smile on my face, and opened the front door just in time to see Mona walk right on past and down the street. Not even a backward glance from her or her dog. Slowly I closed the door and stood with my back to it, blinking back tears of frustration.

Probably on her way somewhere, Kate said.

Somewhere? Where is there to go in this town? Crystal Cove prided itself on its small-town ambience. The little town I once found claustrophobicthe one I escaped from some fifteen years agowas the one Id recently returned to. Sometimes I missed the perks of big-city living and a job with a regular paycheck. The destinations around here include the bank, the park, the library, and the occasional neighborhood block party.

Thats not fair, Kate said. We have a small farmers market that you havent even visited, we have great beaches you say you dont have time for, and we have an old-fashioned downtown that you ignore.

Okay, okay, Ill get to the market.

Dont just go to the market, rent a booth and sell your pies there.

But Grannie never

I know she didnt, but that doesnt mean you cant.

And who minds the shop while Im at my booth?

I will or you can hire a high school girl. You dont have to be everywhere.