a winner

I don’t know about you, but as I cruise around the internet, I’m totally blown away by the beautiful spaces online. I look at blogs and marvel at how amazing these writers and photographers are. What they accomplish, and what they are able to document. Holy wow. It’s inspiring and humbling at the same time.

In the last couple months, I’ve gotten a few unexpected compliments from folks around the blogosphere that I super really admire. Folks that I feel are leaps and bounds ahead of me in the blogging hierarchy like Lily (self-deprecating and honestly hilarious), Yossy (sweet and savory), and even Rohan (living a strangely parallel, hillbilly life down under). It’s shocking and confusing and completely flattering that these bloggers/rock stars would take the time to look at my little corner of the interwebs and reach out with a few unsolicited kind words. It’s like…wait, I’m the one who’s supposed to be fawning over YOUR blog, and what…you think what I’M doing is cool? How is that even possible?

The point is, I’m proud of this blog, but I’ve been blown away by the fact that anyone is following along, commenting and adding to the conversation, covering the bases that I’ve skipped over or ignored. Thanks, folks. I think you’re cool, too.

Enough rambling. I’m here to tell you that Yossy’s concord grape pie is a winner. I saw the recipe post on her blog a few days ago and was so intrigued that I knew I had to try it for myself using some of my parents’ concord grapes. This pie is a weird one, but good. Really good.

A few random notes…

Slipping the skins off the grapes is really fun. Seriously.

After cooking the insides of the grapes for a bit, I ended up pressing everything through a potato ricer with holes just slightly smaller than the seeds, and that worked pretty great.

I used this pie crust recipe because I know it works every time, and I’m too scared to try anything else.

In the finished pie, the skins are a little chewy. I didn’t mind, but if you’re picky, it might bother you.

This pie is a little darker looking than other pies I’ve made because of the egg wash/sugar topping. I like that.

I baked this pie in a cast iron skillet in my barbecue. I preheated the barbecue, a few fire bricks, and my Lodge cast iron pizza pan on high before adding the assembled pie. Then I turned the barbecue down to medium-high and left the pie for about an hour. It looked like this when it came out, all bubbly and golden.

This pie would be especially great served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.