It's Pie Season!

Okay, okay, in truth every season is pie season, or should be. But I hadn't made any pie in a ridiculously long time.

My first pie of the season was a plum pie. I generally find that plums make wonderful pie, although now that I don't have a plum tree, I have to rely on the unpredictable selections at the grocery store. One year I discovered that pluots made a divine pie (they are some sort of cross between plums and apricots), but of course then they were nowhere to be seen again. This year I tried a variety of plum I had never before seen, with a mottled skin and somewhat mottled flesh, round in shape and freestone. They made a good pie (although I didn't need to add so much sugar) but I discovered that they are really great to eat fresh in slices! Unfortunately I threw away the label so I don't know what kind they were.

My second pie was an experiment, because it had occurred to me that I wasn't using the jalapenos from the garden quickly enough. This pie involved one bag of cranberries, one Granny Smith apple, and two jalapenos. I was going to use more jalapenos since most of mine have been very mild, but the second one I cut up was demonstrably hot, so I decided to stop there on my trial run. I was going to add walnuts as well, but forgot.

This pie, I would say, is a success but could be tweaked. I normally use tapioca as my thickener--the instructions on the Minute Tapioca box are my guide for fruit pies--but in this case I think cornstarch would be a better option because there is not enough juice for the tapioca to soak up and get a really good texture. Or, possibly, the tapioca could be soaked first. I used 1/4 cup tapioca and 3/4 cups sugar, which still made for a nice tart pie. I also sprinkled some cinnamon on top.

Re crusts, if I were to make my own dough I'd never end up making pie, alas. Marie Callender frozen pie crusts work very well. Not saying I've never made my own crusts or never will again, but generally I go with a frozen premade crust, in the interests of actually making the pie.

Book Reviewers Wanted!

Do you review books for a magazine, journal, blog, podcast, or newspaper? Or are you the book review editor for one of these? Maybe you commission book reviews for an H-Net list or another scholarly list.

Now is the perfect time to request a review copy of Magnetic Woman from University of Pittsburgh Press! What could be better than settling down with a beautifully designed book that combines art, surrealism, the Czech avant-garde, a reticent and gender-ambiguous creative figure, and the erotic? (Okay, some of you would rather curl up with your cat or dog and a cup of tea, and that's fine too. But if you do review books...)

University of Pittsburgh Press's publicity team wants to hear from you!

Counting Down to a November Launch!

Magnetic Woman is scheduled to launch in just a month! Don't forget, you can pre-order your copy now (or ask your library to order if you haven't yet done so).

Short Fiction at Unlikely Stories!

One of my stories has just come out in the online journal Unlikely Stories. It has the (possibly pretentious? you decide) title "Terpsichore, not by Michael Praetorius." That's because I'm one of those peculiar people who listens to a good deal of early music, not because it is actually about early music. Give it a read!