Mock Apple Pie Squares — The Pie That Holds the Week Together

Peter has been sober for some months now. The relief lives in my body in a way I had forgotten was possible. The relief is a physical thing — looser shoulders, a chest that takes a fuller breath, sleep that does not break at 3 AM with the question "is the phone going to ring with the wrong news." The phone has not rung with the wrong news. The phone has rung with Peter's voice, every day, sometimes twice. The relief is the answer to the prayer I had stopped allowing myself to pray. Peter came up for a long weekend. He looked good. He brought Janet (the new woman). She made banana bread. She held her own in the kitchen. She made me laugh — twice, both times at her own expense, which is the kind of self-deprecation that signals an emotionally healthy person. I think this might be the one. I think this might be the one Peter has been waiting for, the one who can match his particular wounded honesty with her own steady-handed kindness. Karin is having heart trouble. She had a procedure. She is fine. Stockholm is far. I called every day for two weeks. She said: "You are the most insistent sister." I said: "You are the only sister in Sweden." Fair, she said. We laughed. The laughing across the Atlantic, mediated by video call, is its own form of intimacy. We are eighty and seventy-something and we are still the small girls in the kitchen on Fifth Street, in some way that the years have not erased. I cooked Apple pie this week. Honeycrisps. Butter-and-lard crust. Sharp cheddar on the side. Always. The Damiano Center on Thursday. Gerald told me a long story about a bus accident he had survived in 1988 in Duluth. He had not told me before. He has been telling me more stories lately. I am the audience he has been gathering, slowly, over years. I listen. I do not interrupt. The stories are the gift he is giving. Pappa would have liked this week. The fish were biting. The weather was clear. The Vikings won. He would have approved of all three. Pappa was a man of small approvals — he did not say much, but he made a small grunt of acknowledgment when something was right, and the grunt was the highest praise he gave. I miss the grunt. I miss being given the grunt. It is enough. It has to be. And on a morning like this, with the lake doing what the lake does and the dog at my feet and the bread on the counter and the kitchen warm enough to live in, it is. I keep a small notebook on the kitchen counter — green spiral-bound, from the drugstore. I write in it most days. The notebook holds the things I do not want to forget — Erik's stories about Pappa, Karin's notes about Mormor, Sophie's first words about her babies, the recipes I have changed slightly and want to remember in their changed form. The notebook is a small museum. The museum will go to Anna eventually, and then to Sophie, and then to Sophie's daughter Ingrid, and then onward. Sven (whichever Sven I am living with at the moment) has the daily distinction of being the most consistent presence in my life. He follows me from kitchen to porch to bedroom. He sleeps within ten feet of me at all times. He notices when I am sad and he comes to put his head on my knee and the head is heavy and warm and the heaviness is the comfort. The dog is not a person. The dog is the only creature in the house, however, and the dog does the work that another person would do if there were one. The dog is enough. It is enough.

This was a week for apple pie — there was no other answer. Peter was here and looked like himself again, Karin is on the mend, and the kitchen was warm enough to live in. I made it the way I always make it: Honeycrisps, a crust with lard in it because my mother said so and she was right, and a slice of sharp cheddar on the side that non-believers are welcome to skip, but they are wrong. These Mock Apple Pie Squares are what I made — the same spirit as that pie, pressed into a form you can cut into squares and pass down the table to whoever has pulled up a chair, expected or not.

Mock Apple Pie Squares

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 10 min | Servings: 16

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cold lard (or 1/2 cup lard and 1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed)
• 1 egg yolk, plus enough whole milk to make 2/3 cup total liquid
• 1 cup crushed cornflakes
• 8 to 9 medium Honeycrip apples (about 3 lbs), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons whole milk (for glaze)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Sharp cheddar cheese, sliced, for serving

Instructions

1. Make the crust. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in lard (and butter if using) with a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir the egg yolk into the milk, then add to the flour mixture and mix just until the dough comes together. Divide in half, flatten each half into a disk, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
2. Prepare the pan. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 15x10-inch rimmed baking sheet (jelly roll pan). Roll one dough disk out to fit the bottom and slightly up the sides of the pan and press it in evenly.
3. Add the cornflake base. Sprinkle the crushed cornflakes evenly over the bottom crust. This layer absorbs juice and keeps the bottom from going soggy.
4. Layer the apples. Toss sliced apples with granulated sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg until evenly coated. Spread the apple mixture over the cornflake layer in an even layer.
5. Top with second crust. Roll the second dough disk to fit the top of the pan and lay it over the apples, tucking and pinching the edges to seal. Brush the top crust evenly with beaten egg white.
6. Bake. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the crust is deep golden brown and the apples are tender when pierced through the crust with a thin knife. Cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before glazing.
7. Glaze and cut. Whisk together powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk, and vanilla until smooth. Drizzle over the warm bars. Allow the glaze to set for 5 minutes, then cut into squares. Serve with a slice of sharp cheddar on the side — always.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 46g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 160mg