I am sorry to say that I don't have as
many memories of my Grandma Piekarski as I do Grandma Beck. One
memory though that always sticks out with her, was her apple pie.
Grandma Piekarski made the best apple
pie that I remember. When she and Grandpa lived in Whitefish Bay,
they had a small orchard in their backyard, about a half dozen trees.
I think they were all a cooking apple, because I can't remember just
eating an apple right off the trees.
Anyway back to the pie. She mostly
made the pies in the fall with fresh apples. The smell of the
cooking pies would fill the whole house with the most wonderful smell
of cooking apples and tasty crust. Her pies were the perfect
combination of apples, spices and flaky crust. My most prized
memory of her was one fall when I was visiting her, I think I was
around 8 years old. Grandpa had picked apples for her and brought
them into the kitchen for her. I was looking to watch her make the
pies and then she surprised me and said she'd show me how to do it.
So we mixed the ingredients for the crusts and divided the dough –
one for her pie and one for my very own little pie! After the work
of making the dough was done we filled the crusts with her filling
and and waited for the goodness to come out of the oven.
Sadly a few years later Grandma and
Grandpa moved out of Whitefish Bay to Thiensville, away from her
trees, and she quit making those delicious pies.
