Grandma Flossie's Piecrust

We had been picking berries all week and with Father's Day approaching I thought, "Why not try something special for dessert?"  I dug out my Grandma's pie crust recipe.  The one I'm ashamed to admit I'd never made before.  It has intimidating words like "scant" and "sifted" and "ice water" in it.

Right after Dean and I were married we visited her and she happened to be making a pie.  Thinking I would soon be making lots of pies, ( I don't know why I thought being married would automatically make me a baker) I asked her for the recipe.  She handed me a piece of paper and while she made her crust she dictated to me the steps...

2 C flour sifted with a tsp of salt,
remove 1/3 C of the flour salt mixture and mix it with 1/4 C ice water to make a paste, place in fridge,
cut in 1 scant C shortening to remaining flour,
mix refrigerated paste and flour/shortening together,
place on a floured board and knead well,
divide dough in half and roll out,
makes 1 large double crust pie
bake 375 until done

Simple and daunting at the same time. "bake until done?" How thin should I roll it?  What exactly is a scant cup of shortening?  I remembered watching her make her perfect crust, the crust I'd eaten every other Thanksgiving since I can remember.  I watched her measure the salt in her hand and eye her shortening on the end of her wooden spoon.  No measuring cups needed for her.

All these years later I finally got around to making Grandma Flossie's crust.  It really is a perfect crust.  In fact, the kids all picked out the blueberries and asked for seconds of crust only.  This post is for posterity, to show that I really did make a pie, all by myself, at least once.  I felt a little bit like the Little Red Hen.  Short of growing the wheat and grinding the flour, this pie really is from scratch.  We picked the berries and made the crust from raw supplies in the pantry and that's close enough for me.

Thank you Grandma, for teaching us that perfection takes a little bit extra time, love, and thought. It was delicious.