A holiday that’s easy as pie

In L.A., July 4 always starts with a luxurious awakening to a city more quiet and calm than usual. That feeling of lying in bed, the quiet settling in around me and the smoky scent of barbecues being fired up all over the neighborhood give me a hit of anticipatory pleasure of the day ahead. The aroma finally gets me up and propels me to the kitchen where after a cup of coffee I face the relaxed pleasure of preparing dough for the pie-iest day of the year (except for Thanksgiving).

That first pie is the “house” pie, made for my family to eat for breakfast. It has to be apple. After all, the holiday is “as American as….” Besides, apple is my favorite. The Ur pie. If there were just one pie in my universe, it would be the double-crust apple pie — no contest. It has everything. The yielding sweetness of fruit tossed in sugar, with a hint of cinnamon, and tucked into a crust that combines the crisp richness of butter and a bit of tenderness lent by lard or vegetable shortening. If I were an apple, it’s how I’d like to go.

Once “breakfast” is in the oven, I can concentrate on the “visiting” pies, the ones that go with fireworks later. That’s where the trouble begins. What to make? What do I choose?

I ask, what is pie to you? Is it luscious peach or apricot? (When the first stone fruit of the season hits my farmers market, my pie sensory awareness apparatus goes into overdrive.) Or a glistening, lattice-topped blackberry pie, or maybe a mountain of plump red strawberries tossed in a sweet glaze and simply poured into a crust? Or maybe you have a childhood hankering for the pan-seasonal banana cream pie, or a snowy mound of shaved coconut atop a generous coconut custard. I’ve discovered that pie is very personal.

As a pie maker, I know my responsibility is to deliver as much pleasure as possible. So usually I compromise (is more of everything a compromise?) and make two, or three or more.

Peaches are beautiful now (no low-acid varieties for this baker), so I make a lattice peach pie because it’s luscious with vanilla ice cream, which also seems to be so much a part of the holiday. And I settle on my new favorite, a pie developed during my pie-a-day madness last year. It’s blackberry streusel with lemon quark from Spring Hill Cheese Co. Quark is the German version of cream cheese. Spring Hill’s is light and lemony. It’s a perfect foil to sweetened blackberries.

So tell me, where am I meeting you today? Are you bringing the ice cream? Make sure there’s enough.

Evan Kleiman is the owner and chef of Angeli Caffé and the host of “Good Food” on KCRW. In the summer of 2009, she baked a pie a day; this year other bakers are joining the challenge.