Pie Party Begins with Anne Ylvisaker's Memory Pie

This week we are celebrating the launch of my good friend writer Anne Ylvisaker's latest treasure, The Luck of the Buttons. Set in 1929, the story follows intrepid Tugs Esther Button as she decides to reverse the bad luck of her family while solving a mystery in her small Iowa town. Historical details are woven seamlessly among lovable characters. Adults and kids will both love this one. Oh yes, and there's pie in the story! Enjoy Anne's posts and recipes this week.  -AA

Some people recall the date of a childhood memory by attaching the event to a season or holiday. For me it’s pie. Remember the first time Chuck came to the house? Apple pie. That picnic at Como Lake? First peach pie of the summer. Grandma’s house? Whipped chocolate on a graham cracker crust. Betty’s visit? Banana cream.

Until I started ruminating on this, I assumed that in my childhood, there was a pie for every occasion. But why are there so many rhubarb pie memories? Was early summer so much more eventful than other times of the year? I realize now that it wasn’t so much a pie for every occasion as an occasion for every pie. Chuck came over because there was apple pie. We took a picnic in order to eat the peach pie. And when rhubarb was in season, our social life was at its peak. For those in the Midwest in early summer, Rhubarb pie is it’s own holiday.

I would not dare declare a best rhubarb pie among my mother and her sisters, so here is the recipe included in the family cookbook my mother put together for me:

(Aunt) Mary’s Rhubarb Pie

4 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups sugar

6 T flour

2 beaten eggs

Place rhubarb in 9 inch pastry lined pan. Mix flour, sugar and eggs and pat over rhubarb. Top with crust. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.