Steven E. F. Brown

Preparing rhubarb is a slow business.

Rhubarb has to be peeled carefully to keep the pie from being too stringy.

A vegetable peeler helps with this.

Rhubarb’s tough, so I cut it thin.

I quartered the strawberries.

Dough is pretty simple: flour, butter and cold, cold, cold water. Plus a bit of salt.

About 1 and 1/3 cups of butter.

After the dough’s mixed, it’s ready to cut into two pieces, to make the floor and roof of the pie.

I cut one piece a bit larger, for the deep dish that holds the filling.

The dough for the bottom round is ready to roll!

Rolling out the round. I call this “making Antarctica,” since the irregular round looks like Terra Australis.

With luck, I don’t get a big Ross Sea or Weddell Sea that makes it hard to fit the round in the dish!

Folded in half, the round is ready for the dish.

I drape it in the deep dish carefully.

Unfolded, it still hangs like a tent over the dish below.

I’ve carefully coaxed the dough round down into the deep pie dish.

The strawberries and rhubarb await a dusting of sugar, tapioca and corn starch.

Once dusted, they need to be thoroughly stirred to coat them with the mixture.

The coated filling in the round.

Dots of butter melt during baking and mix with the filling.

Time to roll out the top round.

Roof ready to be put across.

Just like the bottom round, the roof is easier to raise if it’s folded in half.

Roof draped across.

I use scissors to trim the overhang.

Someone waits hopefully for any extra trimmings!

Crimping the edges closes the pie like an envelope.

I roll the two edges over and pinch them together all the way around.

When it’s all crimped, I check the circumference for any gaps.

A sealed pie needs steam vents in the top.

The steam vents are finished.

In the oven at 350!

All done and ready to eat with some ice cream!