My Thanksgiving holidays were a dream come true this year - I spent the weekend in Montreal with my older sister and my niece and nephew. While my teenage girls slept in, Marieve (my 8-year-old niece) and I decided to make an apple pie. I had fantasies about baking the perfect pie and being an inspiration to my niece. "My aunt taught me how to make my first pie," Marieve would say years from now to her future husband. "I will never forget it. And that's why I became a Cordon Bleu chef." Alas, I was not as great a baker as I had hoped to be. After making a huge mess with the flour and then leaving the dough in the fridge too long (note to self, a too-hard ball of dough will fly off the counter when you try to roll it), we were finally ready to make the pie. [caption id="attachment_18223" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Marieve rolls out the homemade dough"] [/caption]   The fun part for Marieve was using a fork to pinch the edges of the pie. I did cut the edge of the pastry too short so that I wasn't able to fold over the edge as the recipe says, but I wasn't going to tell Marieve that! [caption id="attachment_18225" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Marieve tackles what she called "decorating the pie""] [/caption]   Finally we were ready to make the filling. We peeled (well, I peeled) a seemingly endless number of apples and melted more - yes more - butter to mix with the apples along with cinnamon, lemon zest, cornstarch and sugar. The result smelled so delightful that I had to take a break and make myself another latte. Marieve had a glass of milk. Finally we rolled the top on and put the pie in the oven. The results? We think it looks pretty perfect. What do you think? [caption id="attachment_18227" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="The final pie! Marieve was very proud!"] [/caption]