Choose Your Own APPLE Adventure

(1) You go to the farmer's market and bring back a bag of apples.

If you want to eat these apples out of the bag go to (2).

If you decide to make an apple pie go to (3).

(2) Oh no! You're choking! No one's there. You're dead.

(3) You grab your Martha Stewart book and get to work.

Do you want to make Martha's pate brisee? Go to 5.

Do you want to make Meg's? Go to 4.

(4) Martha finds out and kills you. And Meg. Death death everywhere!

(5) Here's Martha's recipe. Isn't it easy? Just flour, salt, butter and water. This one has no shortening but you trust Martha. She is your friend.

Do you want to chill it the requisite amount of time? Go to 7.

Do you want to roll it right away? Go to 6.

(6) Oh no! A mess! Martha kills you and Meg. And Michael Ruhlman.

(7) Ah, nice. You chilled the dough before you rolled it. Now it's easy to roll. Ahhhhhh. Place it in the pan as you work on the apples. You listened to Martha and got a variety of apples at the farmer's market: Granny Smith, Jonagold and Empire. Now peel and core them, slice into 1/4-inch thick slices.

Do you toss with vinegar, jelly, mothballs and cheese? Go to 8.

Do you toss with lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt? Go to 9.

(8) You look in the mirror and see this and die from the shock.

(9) Yum!

Now place that in the pie shell and dot with butter.

Cover with the other rolled out dough and attempt to seal. It looks ugly but you don't care, do you?

Brush with egg wash and bake at 400 for 20 minutes then reduce to 350 and finish for 40 minutes. It looks like this:

Do you eat it right away? Go to 10.

Do you wait for it to cool? Go to 11.

(10) Ow! You burn your mouth! Your significant other breaks up with you and everyone calls you blister mouth.

(11) Ah, you waited. Now for the fun part. Invite some friends over and cut in:

Do you let your friends have only one slice each? Go to 12.

Do you let your friends have two slices each? Go to 13.

(12) Your friends are no longer your friends. They call you blister mouth even though it doesn't really make sense.

(13) You let everyone have two slices and everyone thanks you. Then you see what's left:

Do you kill yourself? Go to 14.

Do you carry on and decide to make another pie some day? Go to 15.

(14) The rope breaks and you live! But you lose your house in a fire and everyone calls you Blister Mouth.

(15) You go to the market to buy apples for another pie and meet a handsome stranger with glasses and a brown corduroy jacket. He makes you fall in love with him and then he kills you. And Meg. It's a sad ending to a lovely story.

HEY!

Here are some tips I have for making this pie:

- Even if you mess up any of the components (as I did) make sure you only roll it out once. If you re-roll it you will have tough pie. So take pieces from the outside and plop them over the holes in the middle and no one will know.

- Three pie connoisseurs who love apple pie (Craig among them) said this was one of the best pies they ever had. And look, Martha has the recipe online. So give it a try--it is apple season after all. Enjoy!