Independence Pie and the Shroud of Hayden

About author / Josh Gunn

Bachelor chef; southern cooking; mixologist; university professor. Josh's recipes will delight (and sometimes terrify) you.

Independence Day is an interesting holiday, if only because it's an excuse to blow stuff up with firecrackers. Black snakes on the sidewalk, bottle rockets, the smell of sulfur: these are the things the fourth of July is made of, and for.

The Fourth of July is also all about pie, of course, and the increasingly creative ways in which folks define and perform their independence, civilly and socially. Although it is true Independence Day is fundamentally a celebration of the American colonies' decision to split from the British Empire, our understanding of independence has continued to evolve and blossom over many hundreds of years. I am quite fond of liberating strawberries and rhubarb from the garden right into my mouth, with a certain baked pastry as the vehicle.

Strawberry and rhubarb pie: just the thought makes my brow perspire in anticipation. And I had some. Last night. For dessert. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

I'm busy this week touring various towns in Colorado and seeing friends I haven't seen in years. I visited some new friends---my Masonic brothers---in Colorado Springs for a couple of days, with a hotel room that overlooked Pike's Peak. With blue skies and little fluffy clouds, it was like living in a post card. I attended a breathtakingly beautiful lodge meeting, followed by some delicious cigar smoking in a secret, wood-paneled bar off an alley in downtown Colorado Springs. Then, I hiked it up I-15 to Longmont to see my friends Amy and Brian, whose two year old Hayden I'd yet to meet! She took quite well to "Uncle Joshie," I'm proud to say.

My trip, however, was clearly about last night's pie. All roads led to it, and all flights, alas, lead away from it. I thought rhubarb only grew in the New England states, but apparently this stuff grows quite well in Colorado. It looks like red celery. The last harvest of the stuff is usually in June, but because high altitude Colorado has spring-like weather in July, the rhubarb is just starting to end its season. Strawberries grow here too, apparently.

Strawberry is combined with the sliced rhubarb since the latter is pretty tart. I watched Brian make it last night before starting on dinner: he sliced the strawberries and cut up the rhubarb in thin slices, then mixed all this in a large bowl with sugar and spices. He dumped this into a pie crust, then topped with another pie crust and punched holes in it.

After dinner, two hours later, we had our delicious pie with ice cream. It was tart, but the sweetness of the strawberries and sugar balanced it out. Amy topped our servings with ice cream. It was divine. We ate it slowly, looking at the mountains, as the sun came down---and as Hayden squealed, with the red stuff all over her face. I thought briefly about our making a Shroud of Hayden by pressing a white linen on her face. Brian and Amy were amused, but they didn't think we should follow through with it. "But we can eBay it and get rich," I said. Alas, it was a no go.

So, even though I don't have my own Shroud of Hayden, I did manage to coax Brian and Amy's recipe from them. Here it is. You can serve it on July 4th, as you watch your nieces and nephews blow stuff up with firecrackers---with supervision, of course.

Serves/Makes: 8

• 1 (2-crust size) prepared pie pastry (8 or 9-inch size)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and cut in half
• 2 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb