Three Nanas Apple Pie

How we make it.

Pastry for 9 inch pie double crust
7 to 8 medium size tart, juice apples
1 T. flour
Dash of salt
2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar (depending on tartness of apples)
1 T. butter
1 T. lemon juice (optional)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Set oven 10 minutes before baking to hit (400 to 450 degrees depending on oven. Make pastry; roll out 1/2 of it to line a 9" glass pie pan. Roll out remaining pastry for top. For woven lattice or striped top, cut pastry in long, even strips 1/2" wide. Fit sliced apples into pastry lined pan. Blend flour, salt, sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over top. Dot with butter and sprinkle with lemon juice. Make woven lattice top on pie with strips that were cut. Reserve 2 long strips to use to circle around edge of pie to cover ends of lattice strips. Press down gently all around the edge. Bake 15 min. then reduce heat to moderately low (300 to 325 degrees) and bake 35 min. longer. Remove to cake rack to cool.

Why we make it.

I'm calling this a Three Nanas Apple Pie because it took three Nanas to make it. My kids went apple picking with my husband's mom last week. That's Pops' Nana. She likes an experience and too much is never enough. Bags and bags of apples came home to use on September things. The recipe is my Nana's, one I've never tried myself before. My Nana was a treasure trove of everything, but especially simple fruit pies. She made a different one every week for my pie loving grandfather. Apple, cherry, lemon meringue, peach. You name it. Diddy's Nana, my mom, came over to make this pie the way she remembers her mother doing it. She is a ball of comfort, and my son is exactly like her. Sweet, slow and fastidious. I am famously unwilling to follow directions and my Nana was famously vague with her recipes, so we needed her. This pie is a classic, simple apple pie that needs nothing else. Dotted with butter, sprinkled with sugar, kissed with less cinnamon than you might expect. Subtle as my Nana always was, making us miss her as much as we always do when the scents of her kitchen bring her back, into mine.