Editor's Note: Â Carmon Hacker is a writer friend of mine going back some 20 years to the days I worked at a small newspaper in southwest Ohio. She's a fine writer and a great cook/baker, so this week I thought I'd try something different and offer a selection of her prize-winning county fair recipes. Yum! Â This website does say "Kevin Williams and Friends" at the top, so thought I best do more of the "friends" part:) Â Her recipes and photography are amazing. Wait until you see the applesauce cake tomorrow!
By the way, I do love county fairs. Â At the risk of romanticizing them (I know, I know beef, sheep, etc go to slaughter from there) they are, to me, one of the last bastions of slower-paced Americana where neighbors see one another and the community comes together in celebration of all things agrarian. Â I used to cover the county fair for my local paper and it was a very special time each summer when "fair week" arrived....it meant demolition derbies, biscuit and gravy breakfasts, fair royalty pageantry, politicians strolling the midway and more. Â Carmon's recipes make me want to head out to the county fair, but I missed it this year. Ours is held in July.
Okay, now to turn this over to Carmon Crystal Hacker, a resident of Trenton, Ohio:
CARMON'S COUNTY FAIR LATTICE-TOP STRAWBERRY PIE
Two 9-inch pie crusts
5 ½ cups strawberries, hulled and quartered
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoon cornstarch
Egg wash (1 egg yolk plus 1 tablespoon milk)
Coarsely-ground sugar
Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare pie crusts, divide in half and set in refrigerator while you
prepare filling. Place quartered strawberries in a large bowl. Add vinegar and lemon juice to
berries and mix. In a smaller bowl place dry ingredients, including sugar, salt and cornstarch.
Mix together, then combine with berry mixture.
Roll out first pie crust and place in 9-inch pie pan, leaving edges hanging over. Then, pour berry
filling into unbaked crust. Roll out second crust and cut in 10 strips, each about 1-inch wide.
Place 5 strips at even intervals over crust, putting shorter strips at the edges. Next, take one
strip and weave through the 5 strips, going over, then under and continuing to edge. With the
next strip, begin by going under, then over and continuing to edge. The third strip will begin by
going over; the fourth one will begin by going under, and the fifth one will begin by going over.
Remember weaving paper like this for projects in elementary school? It’s a similar process.
Finally, trim the edge of crust and crimp, incorporating the strips with the bottom crust.
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