Dave's Favorite Pie
A Modern Heirloom Pumpkin Pie Recipe
The initial post is always the hardest in my opinion.
When you decide that you will write, then sit down to actually do it, sometimes the words don’t always arrive on cue. Like the first day of school, how you begin feels like it might define everything that follows.
I sat down to write what Marygold is about, but the words wouldn’t come.
So I did what I often do when I’m stuck: I took my dog on our daily walk, and hoped for inspiration. As we walked, I asked (to myself, to him, to the wind?): “What is Marygold?”
The response that cried the loudest was: imperfection.
Yes, that’s the place to begin, because it describes me perfectly.
Many moons ago, my sister and I owned a bakery. When we began, we did not know what we were doing at all. We liked to bake, and so we started there. Now I look back on the first desserts we photographed, and all I can do is laugh. Nobody would deem them perfect, even for a picture. We were undeterred. We were so certain people would love the desserts—not for what they looked like, but for what they were. We made and sold those imperfect desserts and people raved about the taste. Food made with heart and soul always tastes better than food made merely for the photos. For us, the pretty photos came later—but only after serving thousands of happy customers.
We kept baking despite all setbacks, and built a loyal following of people that love good food. Eventually our customers recommended our bakery for Chicago’s Best TV—one of those shows where the hosts travel around the area bringing attention to notable food businesses. As I stood in our bakery kitchen watching my sister teach Brittney Payton how to make pie crust, the flawless host seemed hesitant about how the crust she was making appeared. My sister encouraged with “there is a lot to be said about finding perfection in imperfection”.
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That statement became our motto and for me, a lifeline.
For my entire life I have felt like I needed to be perfect—make perfect choices, follow the perfect career path, and do things perfectly. After much experience with perfectionism, I can attest to the fact that it is the thief of joy.
Take making a pie, for instance. Let’s say you don’t bake a lot, but you want to make an apple pie with all those gorgeous fall apples you just picked at the apple orchard over the weekend. You go online to find a recipe and immediately, all you see are perfectly pictured pies. You choose one of those recipes from a popular influencer and expect that if you follow what she says in her ten second video, the Mona Lisa of pies will emerge from your oven.
Instead, yours looks more like a pie crust Picasso.
You deem yourself “not a baker”, even a failure, and never start again. All because you are measuring yourself against an impossible standard. Even, possibly, an inauthentic one.
Back in the 80’s we read magazines filled with beautiful models like Cindy Crawford and Christie Brinkley. We coveted those images—tried hard to reproduce the results in our own bathrooms. Hours upon hours and yet, the image staring back from the mirror was definitely not model quality.
Many years later, I saw an ad that showed the reality of those images before publication. The version from behind the model where clothes were tightened in all the right places with clothepins, while anything imperfect was photoshopped out. A dozen sytlists stood on the sidelines, all to help with obtaining just the “right” shot.
That’s how I think of food when I see it on social media now. Staged perfectionism. They get the shot, we get the illusion.
Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with beautiful photos. I am a HUGE fan of them. What I am not a fan of is allowing the fear of not being perfect to dictate my path.
Your patchwork Picasso just may be a crowning achievement of imperfectionism, but it is a part of your story. The day you started. A pie loaded with fresh apples, baked according to a time honored recipe, and stocked full of amazing flavor. Your family doesn’t need a perfect pie—they simply desire the memory you serve up. A sweet memory to cherish forever: that day they sat in their mom’s kitchen enjoying a slice of warm pie and laughing over their visit to the apple orchard. That is what they will remember.
Similarly, people don’t remember me giving up a promising career. They remember that I boldly reinvented. It was the type of imperfectionism that started a movement. It brought people into the bakery to talk about it. People who craved authentic connection. We sat talking about reinvention over steaming cups of coffee and slices of Coconut cake and Cowboy pie. We talked about when we were young growing up with our grandparents, helping them pick fruit from their trees, then turning that fruit into pies as we sat rolling dough on the kitchen counter. We reminisced until tears streamed down our faces, and swore we had lived the same lives.
Then those women told me that they admired what I did, and they wanted to do it too. In those moments, I didn’t feel so imperfect afterall.
Marygold is about my stories. It’s the recipes I have always made, the thoughts I have always held, the people I have shared it all with. Plus, some new things I have learned in recent years. For instance, I have started making my own skincare, which I like to think as food for my skin, and I also have learned more about how food affects my health.
It’s taken me a long time—too long in fact—to share this. I am just like everyone else whose creativity can be impaled by the concept of perfectionism. My entire life I tried to measure up to that standard. But recently, I remembered my sister’s words. “It’s ok to not be perfect.” Words that brought me back to a wooden table in a little bakery that smelled like my Grandma’s kitchen.
I still eat with awareness. But I also bake pie and serve cake. It’s time to let go of the illusion—and to remember who I am.
It’s time to find perfection in imperfection once again.
Marygold is me no longer denying my destiny, and instead, embracing my imperfection. I want to shout to the rooftops: I am imperfect! Most days will find me with no makeup, unwashed hair twisted up, and barefoot in my garden. I prefer heirloom over modern, slow over fast, old over new. I make imperfect food, garden imperfectly, and talk about the beauty of spontaneity over planned.
Perfectionism served its purpose in my life, and now it’s over. If you are here, I want you to know how much freedom there is in finally letting go of perfect.
So, let’s feed our souls what they crave: imperfect authenticity.
Today, I am sharing a recipe for the pie that one of my customers loved so much he recommended that Chicago’s Best TV visit us and put us on the map. Dave’s pie was actually not the Cowboy pie we baked on TV, but instead, Pumpkin. He loved our Pumpkin Pie so much he wanted it all year long. He loved it when we first started and it was imperfect, and he loved it still at the end when he ordered one for the freezer to ensure his birthday pie would be there despite our closing.
Our Pumpkin Pie began not with the recipe on the back of the Libby’s can, although in all honesty, that’s not a bad recipe. Pumpkin is pumpkin and most recipes are pretty similar. But we took our Grandma’s recipe and added a simple twist. Instead of canned evaporated milk, we use heavy cream. It’s that richness in the cream that makes the pie so unique and special.
Moreover, we never pre-baked our pie crusts at the bakery (unless of course it was for an unbaked filling). There are a ton of people out there that covet a slice of pie with a hard crust they can always pick up and eat. Then there are those of us who don’t. I am in the category of people who don’t like to pre-bake my pie crust. I don’t care for hard crust, or the extra steps it entails. But if you do, by all means feel free to pre-bake your crust. Make a pie you love.
Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients
3 large eggs
3/4 C granulated sugar
1 T cornstarch
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ginger
1 t Cinnamon (my favorite here is Tung Hing)
1/8 t nutmeg
1 1/2 - 2 C pumpkin puree
1 1/2 C heavy cream
Directions
Stir together all ingredients in the order listed.
Pour into unbaked pie shell.
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes.
The pie is done when the edges are set, but the center is still a little jiggly.
Baker’s Note: The reason pumpkin pies crack in the middle is because they are pulled from the oven too late. Custard pies should be jiggly in the center when they come out of the oven. They set and expand as they cool.
Aww I love Geneva, such an adorable place. Your desserts look amazing! 🤤