I spent the month of July in Kabul. When the assignment arose, I was excited—euphoric!—for all kinds of reasons, some altruistic (supporting my colleagues) and many somewhat selfish. Beyond the anticipation of international travel, on hold these many months, was the thrill of going to a place I’d heard about for decades. I’ve been curious about Afghanistan since I was in high school, observing 9/11 and my country’s subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that those events influenced my career path and engendered a deep curiosity to know what Afghanistan was really like, what Afghans were really like.

So when the opportunity came, I grabbed it. And, like so many things, it was everything/nothing that I’d expected. I knew I wouldn’t get to see much, since I’d be stuck on a compound for most of my visit. And I’ve lived on compounds before, so I knew to expect periods of claustrophobia, loneliness, and boredom. I knew I would miss my partner and our puppy. That all came to pass, as did a number of things that I didn’t know to expect. I didn’t expect to find Kabul so beautiful. I didn’t expect to hear “Happy Birthday” on repeat all-day every-day, the soundtrack to the ice cream carts circling my neighborhood. I didn’t expect to see the mountains from my balcony or eat the best mangoes I’ve ever tasted. I figured that I would find a few colleagues to become friendly with; I didn’t expect that they would so profoundly affect me: A, who speaks no English but always greeted me with enthusiasm and who collects the women’s lunch leftovers to take to her widowed sister; SP, who is fiery and bright and loves Hershey’s kisses; SA, soft spoken and iron willed and who arranged a special meal for me; M, thoughtful and savvy, who brought me perfect Afghan cherries, sad on my behalf that I couldn’t see much of the city. My time in Afghanistan was more than I anticipated, and also deeply unsatisfying, feelings that were complicated by what came later: a week after I left, on a regular, commercial flight, the Taliban completed their sweep through the country and seized Kabul.

It’s been difficult to make sense of my experience and my feelings about it. I have the personal to contend with—the dualities of boredom and purpose, anxiety and enjoyment that I lived are not easy to process. There is also something bigger and harder to define, the sense that I un/willingly participated in world events, as an American and as an individual, that through the accident of my birth and my decision to work in this field, I have made decisions that have in/directly affected other peoples’ lives. Responsibilities lie somewhere in all of this, I think, but what they are and what I do with them, I’m still figuring out. None of this is easy to parse. The words stick in my throat when I try to talk with friends, they falter in my pen as I try to write. I’m giving myself permission to sort through the jumble slowly, on long bike rides and runs, or in the kitchen as I chop, sauté, and stir, perfecting my recipe for banjaan borani, an eggplant stew I had often in Kabul. Gradually, I’m coming to terms with the fact that it might take me years to come to terms with it all, if I ever do.

What does all of this have to do with food? Maybe nothing. Or maybe everything, because food is one of the primary ways that I experienced Afghanistan, and it was rich and varied and left me wanting more. And that is, perhaps, the perfect metaphor for my time in Kabul: it gave me just enough to whet my appetite but left my craving, to know something about the country and the people, undiminished.

---

*If you want to learn more about Afghanistan, it’s history and culture and cuisine, I recommend Durkhanai Ayubi’s cookbook, Parwana.

*If you have been following events in the country and want to help people still in Afghanistan, consider donating to Women for Afghan Women. If you’d like to help support Afghan refugees in the United States, consider volunteering with a resettlement agency, such as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services or the International Rescue Committee.

---

Banjaan Borani

Source: Inspired by Parwana

Serves ~6 people

Active time: 45 minutes; total time: 35 minutes

Note: There are probably a thousand different ways to make banjaan borani. Many recipes recommend peeling the eggplant, and/or frying it; cooking it as thick steaks; cutting the tomatoes in big slices; etc. I like to make it as close to what I ate in Kabul, and as easily as possible in my little kitchen, as I can.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds eggplant
• Sunflower or vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 large onion
• 4 large cloves garlic
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 5 large tomatoes
• 2 cups plain yogurt
• Lemon juice
• Fresh mint
• Rice or bread, to serve

Directions:

• Slice the eggplant (either horizontally or vertically, it doesn’t matter) into 1/2-inch thick “steaks.” Brush them with oil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Either grill or broil the eggplant until it’s lightly browned.
• While the eggplant is cooking, chop the onion and mince the garlic; set aside. Chop the tomatoes and set them aside.
• When the eggplant is done and cool enough to handle, chop it into ~1-inch cubes. This can be done several hours in advance or even the day before. If you cook it the day before, keep the eggplant in the refrigerator until ready to use.
• Heat a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. When it’s hot, add a tablespoon or so of oil and then the onion and garlic. Sauté them until they’re turning translucent and starting to soften.
• Add the eggplant, spices, sugar, vinegar, salt to taste, and tomatoes. Stir to combine.
• Reduce the heat to medium-low and let the mixture cook, adding water if it starts to stick, until most of the liquid from the tomatoes has cooked off and you have a thick, stew-like consistency.
• Meanwhile, make the yogurt sauce: whisk the yogurt with lemon juice, to taste, and a pinch of salt. I like my yogurt thin and tangy, but you can leave it thicker and creamier, if you prefer. Chiffonade some fresh mint leaves while you’re at it.
• When the stew is ready, ladle it into a bowl and top with yogurt and fresh mint. Excellent with either rice or fresh bread.

I have a great fondness for the recipes that come printed on the back of packages. The cornbread recipe on the back of Quaker cornmeal? That was the first thing I ever baked, and despite having tried about 15 other varieties, it’s still my favorite. Ditto the peanut cookie recipe printed on JIF jars, even though I no longer eat JIF, and the oatmeal raisin cookies on the inside of oat canisters. I’ve made these recipes dozens of times, and they’ve always turned out perfectly. They’re the type of recipe that you can count on, whether you’re tired or crabby or only giving the project 37 percent of your attention. In my opinion, that’s because these recipes are the makers’ chance to provide you with an accident- and idiot-proof way to prepare something delicious with their product, and food manufacturers are smart enough to not mess that up.

Which is why I knew exactly what to do after panic-buying some buckwheat flour at the grocery back in March. There was no other flour on the shelves, I was running low at home, and that combination was stupefying enough that I felt compelled to buy buckwheat and chickpea flours, neither of which I had ever used.

Back home, my Chief Recipe Taster questioned precisely what I would do with said flours. I didn’t actually know myself, but a surreptitious glance at the package allowed me to save face. “I’ll make buckwheat crepes,” I said, attempting to hide my great fear of crepes, one of those things that have heretofore seemed too fussy to bother making myself. But I’d bought the buckwheat, which meant I had to use it, so a few weeks ago I embarked on a crepe-making adventure and was astonished to find that they’re dead easy. I served them with butter-sautéed leeks, the hardest part of which is cleaning the leeks, and eggs fried in the same pan as the crepes, once those were done, and if we hadn’t have had to do the dishes afterword, I’d have thought we were in a restaurant. I’ve made them numerous times since then, and they have yet to fail me. It’s a recipe that proves the rule: you can’t beat the recipe on the back of the box.

Buckwheat Crepes with Sautéed Leeks and Fried Eggs

Source: Pereg and I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes: ~8 crepes and serves ~4 people

Active time: 60 minutes; total time: 120 minutes

Note: This is my favorite way to enjoy these crepes, but they’re also very good with sautéed spinach; Gruyere and thinly sliced ham and apples; or spread with peanut butter and jelly.

Crepe Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup milk
• 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Sautéed Leeks Ingredients:

• ~2¼ pounds (1,000 grams) leeks
• 1 generous tablespoon butter
• Salt, to taste

Eggs, for serving

Directions:

• Make the crepe batter: Vigorously whisk together the eggs and olive oil until the mixture is smooth and largely homogenous. Add the milk and whisk to combine.
• Add the buckwheat flour and salt, and whisk until you have a thin, smooth batter. It should be much thinner than pancake batter. Cover the batter and refrigerate it for at least one hour, or up to overnight.
• Prepare the leeks: While the batter is resting, remove the top few inches of green from the leeks, as well as the root ends. Remove any leathery or papery outer skins from the leeks and either discard them or stick them in your freezer scrap bag to make vegetable broth later.
• Halve the remaining leeks lengthwise, then rinse them thoroughly in cold water. Let them drain in a colander for a few minutes before chopping them width-wise into ¼”-thick sections.
• Heat a skillet over medium heat. Once it’s hot, add the butter and let it melt before adding the leeks. Sauté them gently until softened, ~10-15 minutes, adding salt to taste.
• Make the crepes: While the leeks are sautéing, set a crepe pan or large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. When the skillet is hot, add a tablespoon or so of olive oil, swirling to coat the pan. The oil should be hot and liquid, but not smoking.
• Working quickly, add ~¼-⅓ cup of crepe batter to the pan and swirl it to spread the batter into a thin circle. Let the crepe cook until the top is firm and not tacky to the touch, and the underside is golden brown. Slide the crepe out of the pan and set aside. Repeat with the remaining batter.
• Check in on the leeks—they should be soft, but not browned or dry. If needed, add a little water to keep them from sticking. Once soft, turn off the heat and let them sit until you’ve finished with the crepes.
• When the crepes are done, heat a hefty glug of olive oil in the pan. When it’s hot, crack in as many eggs as you would like and as your skillet can hold, and fry them to your desired viscosity.
• To serve, spread a crepe with some leeks and top with a fried egg.

Few foods are as synonymous with a place as pot roast is with the Midwest. It was ubiquitous in the middle-class Christian milieu I grew up in, so much that I would almost guarantee that on any given night, someone within a five-mile radius of my family’s home was making it. Pot roast is Midwest through and through, and for years I ate it without every giving it much thought.

I was hardly alone in my lack of attention to Midwestern food. It seems to be that most food writers don’t think about the Midwest either, unless they’re making fun of it. The Midwest is to American cooking what Britain is to European cuisine—a joke or something that sustains you, but nothing to praise. Think about it: almost every other regional cuisine has had its moment (see: the South, the Southwest, California, and the Pacific Northwest), but Midwest cooking seems to be as much of a culinary flyover as the physical states themselves.

I think I know why this is. Midwest food is seen as unexciting and unsexy; it’s the type of food that your grandmother made and few people want to think about their grandmother as being sexy. It lacks the Southwest’s spices or anything to do with avocados; the American culinary narrative is definitive about what Midwestern food is not. What I want to do is talk about what Midwest food is: ingenious, low-intensity ways to turn economy into abundance. Take pot roast, for example. The dish uses relatively inexpensive ingredients—a chuck-eye roast, root vegetables—and requires a minimal amount of prep time but yields just-firm vegetables and fork-tender meat. Call me crazy, call me unsophisticated, but I think that’s something worth boasting about, and maybe even an example of a cuisine whose moment is overdue.

Pot Roast With Root Vegetables

Sources: Slightly adapted from The New Best Recipe

Serves 6–8 hungry people

Active time: 30 minutes; total time ~5 hours

Ingredients:

• 1 or 2 boneless chuck-eye roasts, totaling 3 1/2–4 pounds
• Kitchen twine (optional)
• Vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 small carrot, chopped
• 1 stick of celery, chopped
• 2 medium garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup low-sodium beef broth
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• 1/2–1 cup water
• 1 1/2 pounds red potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half if larger than 1 1/2-inchs in diameter
• 1 1/2 pounds carrots and/or parsnips, scrubbed and cut into sticks
• 1/4 cup dry red wine
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary

Directions:

• Put an oven rack in the middle of your oven, then preheat it to 300°F.
• While the oven is warming up, take a look at your meat. If there are clear chunks of fat running through it—not marbling, which is good, but big veins of it—I like to cut out the majority of the fat. If you can do this while keeping the roast in one piece, do that; alternatively, you can cut the roast into smaller pieces as you trim it. The final product won’t present as nicely, if you’re planning to carve it at the table, but it will still be delicious.
• If desired, use the twine to tie your roast into a neat package. This isn’t necessary, but it will keep the roast from falling apart while it cooks.
• Set a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When it’s hot, add enough oil to lightly coat the bottom. Add the roast and sear on each side until its nicely browned. You may need to do this in batches, if you cut your roast into pieces or have more than one.
• Pro tip: Adjust the heat as necessary so that the oil doesn’t get too hot and set off your smoke alarm. I speak from personal experience here people.
• Once the roast is browned, remove it to a plate and set aside. Reduce the heat under the Dutch oven and add a splash more veg oil, if needed, before tossing in the onion, carrot, and celery. Cook, stirring and scraping up any bits of fond from the bottom of the pot, until the onion is turning translucent and the vegetables have softened a bit.
• Add the garlic and sugar and sauté for 30 seconds or so. Pour in the broths and stir, scraping up any additional bits of beef that might be stuck to the pot. Season the liquid with salt and pepper to taste.
• Put the roast back in and add as much water as needed for the liquid to come halfway up the roast (I only needed about 1/2 cup). Bring everything to a simmer, then cover the pot with the lid and put the whole thing in the oven.
• Cook the roast, turning it every 30–60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the meat meets little resistance, about 3 1/2–4 hours. Remove the roast from the oven and take off the lid. If you’re picky about this type of thing, this is an excellent time to strain out the vegetables that were flavoring the cooking liquid. I quite like leaving them in, so I just go ahead and…
• Add the vegetables. Depending on how full your pot is, you may need to take the meat out or just move it from side-to-side while you do so.
• Once you’ve added the veg, put the meat back in, if you took it out, pour in the wine, add the sprig of rosemary, and carefully taste the broth to see whether it has enough salt and pepper. Adjust if necessary.
• Recover the pot and return it to the oven. Cook for another 30 minutes or so, until the vegetables are tender but not mushy.
• Remove the roast from the oven. You can dish up straight from the pot, or if you’re feeling fancy, you can put the roast on a cutting board and tent it with foil for a few minutes. Scoop out the vegetables and put them in a serving bowl, ladling a little extra cooking liquid over them. Carve the meat—which really should be more along the lines of pulling it apart with two forks—and put it in another serving dish, again ladling a little of the stock over them, before serving.
• Note: Pot roast makes excellent leftovers. If you have extra meat, I highly suggest using it as a base in tacos or enchiladas.

• 

• 

• 

In my personal vegetable hierarchy, cabbage falls squarely in the “meh” category. I don’t dislike it, but I don’t crave it, either. Mostly I forget about cabbage until the late fall, when they’re some of the only local produce left in the markets and I’m again seduced by their glossy leaves—particularly the siren song of the anthocyanin-rich red cabbage.

Last fall was no exception to my seduction by cabbages. I bought a cabbage for the express purpose of making the cabbage and mushroom handpies from Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons, which is an excellent book that you should look at immediately. We demolished the pies in short order, astounded by how well the cabbage’s earthy notes played against a buttery pie crust. (Truly, what won’t pie crust improve?)

Despite proper prior planning, I ended up with extra filling. Coupled with an errant CSA order that left me with a surfeit of bacon, I figured the best thing to do would be sauté the bacon, add it to the leftover veg filling, and bake the whole mess into a quiche. My experiment turned out to be a use-up-the-random-ingredients-in-the-refrigerator match made in heaven, good enough to make on purpose for my family’s Christmas Eve brunch, where it was promptly devoured.

Bacon, Cabbage, and Mushroom Quiche

Source: I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes 1 9-inch quiche, serving 6–8 people

Active time: ~1 hour; total time: ~a little less than 2 hours

Note: You can split up the time it takes to make this dish by preparing the pie crust and filling up to two days ahead of time. Wrap the pie crust well and keep in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it. Sauté the bacon and vegetables and store separately until ready to use, then simply combine with the eggs and cream.

Pie Crust Ingredients: (Optional; feel free to substitute one pre-made, refrigerated pie crust)

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick butter (leave it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it)
• 3–4 tablespoons ice water

Bacon, Cabbage, and Mushroom Filling Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound mushrooms, any variety
• 1 medium onion
• 1/2 pound cabbage, any variety
• 1/2 pound bacon (easily omitted to make this quiche vegetarian)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup cream

Directions:

• Make the crust: Do your future self a favor by laying a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter and making sure you have a large bowl handy.
• Add the flour and salt to the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine.
• Take the butter from the fridge and chop it into 1/2-inch cubes. Scatter the butter into the flour mixture and pulse until the butter is coarsely ground. Add 3 tablespoons of ice water and pulse 2–3 times, then dump the contents into a large bowl. Gently press a bit of the dough together; if it holds, proceed to the next step. If it does not, add additional water as necessary.
• Gather the dough into a loose clump and then transfer it to the plastic wrap. Use the corners of the plastic wrap to form the dough into a disc about 2 inches tall. Make sure the dough is completely covered in plastic, then transfer to your refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days.
• Make the filling: Wash the mushrooms and then set them in a colander to drain. Meanwhile, dice the onion, then set it aside. Core the cabbage any remove any rubbery outer leaves, then finely slice and finally chop into pieces approximately 1-inch long; set the cabbage aside, too. Trim the tough ends off of the mushrooms—no need to discard the stems entirely—then thinly slice the mushrooms and, you guessed it, set them aside.
• I like to trim some of the excess fat from my bacon before cooking it; feel free to join me in doing so, or just plan to drain more fat from the skillet after the bacon cooks. Choose your own adventure, and then chop the bacon into 1/2-inch pieces.
• It’s time to cook! Warm a bit of oil in a large skillet set over medium-high heat. Once the oil and skillet are hot, add the bacon and sauté it until browned and crisp. Use a slotted spoon to transfer it to a paper towel-lined plate.
• Pour off any excess bacon grease, leaving just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Return the skillet to medium-high heat; once it’s up to temperature, add the mushrooms and sauté. Most varieties of mushrooms release quite a lot of water, and you want to cook most of this off.
• Once much of the water has evaporated and the mushrooms are browning, reduce the heat to medium, then add the onions and sauté them until they begin to turn translucent. Add the cabbage and cook until it has softened and the vegetable mixture is quite dry—this will help prevent your quiche from being weepy. Season your veggie medley with salt and pepper to taste, then remove the skillet from the heat.
• Position a rack in the bottom third of your oven, then preheat it to 400°F. Take your pie crust out of the refrigerator.
• In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and cream. Add the vegetable mixture and bacon, and stir to distribute the ingredients evenly. Set the bowl aside.
• Prepare a place to roll out your pie crust, dusting the surface with a bit of flour and setting out a rolling pin, sharp knife, and 9-inch pie plate. I like to bake my pies and quiches on a parchment-lined baking sheet, just in case there are any eruptions or overflows, and this would be a good time to get that ready, too.
• When the crust is roll-able, do so, working from the middle of the dough out. It’s okay to use a fair amount of flour to make sure the crust doesn’t stick, just be sure to dust it off before you fit it to the pie plate. Once the crust is about half rolled out, try to gently pick it up, dust your work surface with flour again, flip the crust over, dust it again with flour, and continue rolling.
• Transfer the crust to a 9-inch pie plate and trim away any extra dough before crimping or fluting or otherwise finishing the crust.
• Pour the egg-vegetable mixture into the prepared crust and then carefully transfer the pie plate to the oven. I recommend baking the quiche on a rack set in the bottom third of your oven, which helps cook the bottom of the pie crust, but make sure that your oven doesn’t run hot or you might end up with a more-browned-than-desired crust. If your oven does run warm, just reduce the heat by 10 degrees or so.
• Bake the quiche for ~40–45 minutes, or until the quiche is lightly browned, slightly puffed, and doesn’t Jell-O jiggle when you give it a shake. Remove from the oven and let it cool slightly before digging in.
• Note: It’s totally unorthodox, but this quiche is even more delicious with a smear of Dijon or stone ground mustard on top.

I realize this might be controversial, but I don’t like traditional Thanksgiving food—the turkey, the gravy, the potatoes, the green bean casserole. So much of it is one-note, heavy and rich, too often spiced not enough and with little imagination, lacking in any of the things that give zing and satisfaction to a meal (except you, cranberry relish. I see you). In my vegetarian years, I hated the lack of good entrees and felt relegated to the gustatory sidelines, expected to eat potatoes and wait for dessert. And then there’s the biggest truth bomb: I don’t like pumpkin pie. Some of the time, the filling gets watery and pulls away from the crust, which is unappealing to a food-texture nerd like myself. Most of the time, it doesn’t have much flavor. 100% of the time, I’m left wishing I’d foregone the pumpkin pie in favor of more apple pie.

In my search for the tasty, easy-to-make, Thanksgiving food of my dreams, I spent weeks reading cookbooks and brainstorming before I came up with my great idea: a savory pumpkin pie. But much as I’d love to tout my own brilliance, I’m not the first person to come up with this idea; when I started researching, I found a slew of savory pumpkin pie recipes on the web. Most of them, however, were fussy, calling for the baker to make pumpkin puree from scratch (I don’t have time for that, and having done it before, I can tell you the stuff out of the can is better than what I can make) or to include lots of sliced onions in the pumpkin custard, an idea that offended my aforementioned food-texture sensibilities. Add to that that many of the recipes called for tiny amounts of uncommon ingredients, and I was back to the drawing board. What I finally came up with is a vegetarian main sexy enough to tempt a carnivore, a seasonal entrée with pizzazz—this Parmesan-enriched, parsley-sage pesto-topped, savory pumpkin pie.

Savory Pumpkin Pie

Sources: Pie crust recipe adapted from Williams Sonoma; parsley-sage pesto adapted from The Kitchn; custard from I Thought There Would Be Free Food

Makes 1 pie, comfortably serving 6–8 people

Active time: 45–60 minutes; total time: ~2 hours

Note: If the thought of making your own pie crust gives you anxiety, feel free to substitute one pre-made, refrigerated pie crust. I won’t tell.

Walnut Piecrust Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 3–4 tablespoons ice water

Pumpkin-Parmesan Custard Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup milk (I use 1%)
• 1 15 ounce can pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
• 1 cup grated, shaved or shredded Parmesan
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Parsley-Sage Pesto Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/2 cup grated, shaved, or shredded Parmesan
• 1 large bunch parsley (~2 cups)
• 1 0.5 ounce package sage (~3/4 cup)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:

• Make the crust: Do your future self a favor by laying out a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter—you’ll wrap your piecrust in this shortly—and make sure you have a large bowl handy.
• Heat a large skillet over medium heat. When it’s warm, add the nuts and toast until they’re golden brown and fragrant. This will likely take 5–10 minutes, depending on your stove. Transfer the nuts from the skillet to a plate and let them cool slightly.
• Note: If you’re planning to make the parsley-sage pesto, toast a full cup of walnuts and then set a half-cup aside while you make the crust.
• When the nuts have cooled, place them in the bowl of a food processor with the flour and salt, and pulse until the nuts are finely ground.
• Drop the chunks of butter into the flour-nut mixture and pulse until the butter is coarsely ground. Add 3 tablespoons of ice water and pulse 2–3 times, then dump the contents into a large bowl. Gently press a bit of the dough together; if it holds, proceed to the next step. If not, add additional water as necessary but note that the dough should still be loose and a bit crumbly.
• Gather the dough into a loose clump and transfer it to the plastic wrap. Use the corners of the plastic wrap to form the dough into a disc about 2 inches tall. Make sure the dough is completely covered in plastic, then transfer to your refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.
• Note: If you don’t have a food processor, this crust can also be made by hand, minus the walnuts. Use a pastry cutter or mezzaluna to cut the butter into the flour-salt mixture and then add water, stirring the dough with a fork, before gathering into a ball and refrigerating.
• Make the custard: While the dough is chilling, whisk the eggs together in a medium bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk to combine. Set aside.
• Assemble the pie: Preheat the oven to 400°F and position a rack in the bottom third of your oven. Prepare a place to roll out the pie crust, dusting the surface with a bit of flour and setting out a rolling pin, sharp knife, and pie plate. Take out your piecrust; if it’s been chilling for more than an hour, you might need to let it warm up slightly by setting it on the counter for 5–10 minutes.
• When the crust is roll-able, do so! I suggest working from the middle of the dough out, easing up on the pressure when you get close to the edge, and using a fair amount of flour to make sure it doesn’t stick. Once the crust is about half flattened, try to gently pick it up, dust your work surface with flour, flip the crust over, dust again, and continue rolling. Don’t be afraid to use some flour, just be sure to brush off any excess before baking.
• Transfer the crust to a pie plate and trim away any extra dough before crimping or fluting or doing whatever helps you express your pie creativity. Pour the custard into the crust and carefully transfer the pie plate to the oven. Bake for ~40–45 minutes. The pie will be done when the top looks shiny, rather than dull, and a knife inserted into the middle of the pie comes out relatively clean (a few specks shouldn’t be a problem). Note that overbaking may result in cracks in the filling (ahem, as you can see in my photo above).
• Note: Baking the pie low in the oven and at a relatively high heat will help ensure that the bottom of your crust cooks without pre-baking, but be careful! If your oven runs hot, you might want to reduce the heat by 10–15 degrees.
• Note: Don’t toss your dough scraps! Either save them in the freezer until you have enough to make another pie, or brush them with a beaten egg, dust with a little cinnamon and sugar, and bake until golden brown. I consider these crispies a bonus for the cook and am loathe to share them, unless someone is kind enough to do the dishes for me.
• Make the pesto: Toast the walnuts and grate the Parmesan, if you haven’t yet. Chop the tough ends off the parsley and sage and discard, then roughly chop the rest of the herbs, stems and all, and set aside.
• Add the walnuts and Parmesan to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is uniformly ground. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse to your desired consistency. If at any point the mixture becomes too thick to process, add a tablespoon of oil or so to help it along.
• Note: The color of the pesto will darken as it’s exposed to air, but the flavor will remain just as good. The pesto is best eaten the day it’s made.
• Once the pie is out of the oven and has cooled for about 15 minutes, slice and serve it with dollops of the pesto. This pie is as good warm as it is at room temperature, making it ideal for a Thanksgiving buffet.