It's Pie Time

That's right, I'm making a raspberry pie this afternoon. Few things are more pleasing to me than making pies, specifically the dough. So I thought I'd share with you the world's greatest dough recipe care of our dear friend Martha Stewart. The trick is that you must make this dough the old-fashioned way, meaning with a bowl and your hands. No food processors, no forks, or pastry knives. Feel your way to the perfect consistency. Use your senses. Enjoy.

Henry Beecher on the art of excellent dough:

"Let it not be like putty, nor yet rush to the other extreme and make it so flakey that one holds his breath while eating for fear of blowing it away. Let it not be plain as bread, nor yet rich like cake. Aim at that glorious medium in which it is tender without being too fugaciously flaky; short without being too short; a mild, sapid, brittle thing that lies upon the tongue so as to let the apple strike through and touch the papilae with a more affluent flavor..."

Double Crust Batch of Dough:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Yum. Yum. Milly and Twiss, the bird sisters, would be proud! At least Milly would (Twiss would just eat it).