Pie.

Fresh fruit pie. We all aspire to that perfect triangle of sweet summer perfection. But too many of us fall flat in our goals.

Sure part of the equation is crust. Lard? Shortening? Butter? How cold? How crumbly? How to properly roll it out? There is room for endless debate. But the pastry is a debate I leave for another day.

Because today I want to talk filling– specifically fruit filling.

But first let me set the stage. Perfect pie is like porn; you know when you see it. You often sense it before you see it too. That’s because perfect pie starts with a fresh baked aroma. Then the pie arrives with its sugar bejeweled crust sparkling in the sunlight. Underneath that crust oozes a luscious filling, still tart enough to remind you of the fresh fruit that went into the crust in the first place.

Hit those few marks and there is a good shot that you are in the presence of a great piece of pie. It’s the simple perfection that gives it away. But it’s the complexity of taste and texture that makes it sublime.

To be human is to ponder. Can squash be art? Is zucchini life?

One is a question, the other a metaphor. But, I had time to contemplate such things because I had a particularly spectacular walk down the hill to the Hollywood Farmers Market this morning. It was such a typically spring Southern California morning. Which means there was a touch of gray in the air; what some people erroneously (even on the news) call fog.

But really it is called a marine layer, or inversion layer. If you live anywhere near a very large body of water you probably know what I am talking about.

Here in Los Angeles the inversion layer is particularly pronounced in spring. Some call it May Gray or June Gloom. But these are rather dreary monikers because this morning fog has its own special charm I think. Partly because you can count on it “burning off” by lunchtime, leaving you with some of the prettiest blue skies LA is capable of producing.

But what I really like best about these mornings is the special kind of “hush” that falls over the city. I don’t mean hush like quiet. LA is never quiet. There is always a certain low buzz or hum that permeates the atmosphere (11 million people are incapable of producing complete silence). But there is a gentleness in the atmosphere that envelopes everything.

Are you ready for a little dessert? This is the final day in my series highlighting recipes from my mother’s collection.

It has been a lot of fun for me, and actually very illuminating too. Because I have had this cookbook my brother put together after my mother passed away for about 15 years, but until this week I had never cooked from it.

The first few years it was in possession I honestly was not that interested in cooking. Then, once the interest in cooking took hold, I would occasionally peek through the book. But those peeks were more like a trip down memory lane than anything else.

But this week I did cook from this book. In fact I cooked 7 times! Each time was like a reintroduction to my mother, because each of the 7 recipes reminded me so much of my mom for all kinds of different reasons.

So I thank you for allowing me this indulgence. I realize it may have been a bit overtly sentimental for your average food blog, but you gotta realize the associations I make with food are strong. So once I got started I just had to take the journey where it led. It’s a good thing a decided beforehand to limit myself to one week of recipes though. Because it might have easily devolved into a whole Julie/Julia scenario– can you imagine what a warped movie that would make?