Maine Blueberry Pie With Crumb Topping

We toured the Wallingford house on Monday. James was right: this is it. The house is a 1928 Craftsman with four bedrooms, original hardwood floors, a backyard with a maple tree and room for a garden, a garage that could become office space, and a kitchen that is — I will be honest — terrible. The kitchen has not been updated since 1987. The countertops are laminate. The stove is electric. The layout is wrong. The light is bad. It is the worst kitchen I have ever seen and it is going to be the best kitchen I have ever built because I am going to gut it and rebuild it with a six-burner gas range and a fermenting station and three onggi pots and a shelf of cookbooks in Korean and English and Mandarin and it is going to be the kitchen where Hana learns to cook and where Jisoo visits and where Karen sits and watches and where the whole beautiful impossible family gathers on Sunday nights.

We made an offer on Wednesday. The asking price plus 5%, because the Seattle market does not tolerate asking price. We wrote a letter — I wrote the letter — to the sellers. I told them about Banchan Labs, about Hana, about the kitchen I planned to build. James said, "You wrote two pages about the kitchen." I said, "The kitchen is the most important room in the house." He said, "Most people lead with the schools." I said, "I lead with the kitchen." The sellers accepted on Friday. They accepted our offer. We are buying a house. We are buying a four-bedroom Craftsman in Wallingford with a terrible kitchen and a maple tree and a porch with a railing that needs paint. James held me in the kitchen of the condo — the small, imperfect, beloved kitchen of the condo — and said, "We're going home."

I called Karen. I said, "We bought a house." She said, "Where?" I said, "Wallingford." She said, "That's a family neighborhood." I said, "We're a family." She was quiet. Then she said, "Yes, you are." She said it with weight, with recognition, with the pride of a mother who raised a girl who became a woman who became a mother who bought a house for her family. The pride was audible. The pride was Karen.

The recipe this week is celebration kimbap — the dish I made the night we got the offer acceptance. The rice is seasoned. The fillings are layered. The roll is tight. Each piece is a cross-section of everything: egg, spinach, carrot, pickled radish, tuna, cucumber. Each piece is a small flag. I made two rolls. James ate one. I ate one. Hana gnawed on a piece of gim (seaweed) and looked pleased with herself. We ate kimbap in the condo that we are leaving, for the house that we are going to, and the kimbap was the bridge between the two, and the bridge was delicious.

The kimbap was the bridge that night—but a few days later, once the paperwork was signed and the reality had settled into my bones, I wanted something slower, something that filled the condo with warmth and the smell of something baking. I had blueberries in the freezer and a pie dish I’d never used enough, and I thought: a house deserves a pie. This Maine Blueberry Pie with Crumb Topping is what I made for the second celebration, the quieter one—James at the table, Hana in the high chair, Karen on speakerphone—because some milestones need a crust and a crumb and a filling that bubbles up purple and sweet and completely, recklessly hopeful.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 50 min | Total Time: 1 hr 10 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
Crumb Topping:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 375°F. Fit the unbaked pie shell into a 9-inch pie dish, crimp the edges, and set aside.
Make the filling. In a large bowl, toss the blueberries with the granulated sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, cinnamon, and salt until evenly coated. Pour the filling into the prepared pie shell and spread it level.
Make the crumb topping. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Add the cold butter cubes and work them in with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse, clumpy crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Do not overwork.
Top the pie. Scatter the crumb topping evenly over the blueberry filling, covering it completely to the edges of the crust.
Bake. Place the pie on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any drips. Bake for 45—55 minutes, until the crumb topping is deep golden and the filling is bubbling visibly at the center. If the crust edges brown too quickly, tent them loosely with foil after 25 minutes.
Cool before slicing. Transfer the pie to a wire rack and let it cool for at least 2 hours so the filling can set. Serve warm or at room temperature, plain or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Nutrition (per serving)

Maine Blueberry Pie With Crumb Topping — A Celebration Baked Into Every Slice