Emily and I were naturally drawn to one another as pie makers, but we connected and formed our pie sisterhood over the allure of pie’s perfect imperfection. I’ve been actively appreciating imperfection as a sort of spirituality since pregnancy hormones liberated me from perfectionism sometime in 2004. Our imperfections define and give us dimension, and I find myself feeling the strongest affinity for those brave and vulnerable enough to share their scars and warts and willing to bear witness to mine.

Baking has always felt too much like a practice in perfectionism to really hook me. Baking is chemistry and precision…and I’m a handful-of-this and a squeeze-of-that kind of person. The process of cooking with its tasting and adjusting and tweaking and refining in real time is totally my jam. Cooking feels like expression, where baking feels like compliance and precision.

I make pie like a cook rather than a baker. I may read a few recipes to see what others have come up with, but most of the time I just follow some basic rules and then mix and taste as I go. I use whatever fruit I have and buy whatever is in peak season and I rarely make the same exact pie twice.

Crust dough is fickle and at the mercy of temperature and humidity and other untamable elements. Sometimes the dough is too dry and cracks while I roll it out, sometimes it sticks to my fingers or the rolling pin creating holes in my rounds. When my kitchen is hot and humid, the dough rolls so thin that I’m certain my finished pie will have translucent crust.

But the thing is, people. It just doesn’t matter. Even the worst pastry dough you’ll ever make will result in a finished product more delicious than the dough you would otherwise buy from the supermarket. And anyone who matters will be grateful for the effort you made and relate to the humility of your imperfection.

I am thrilled and honored that Emily invited me to share Pie Eyed Love with me and am excited to share many adventures in life, relationships, parenting and “cooking” pie.