Our daily meditation quote: There is no better time to eat pie than the present.
On a recent weekday afternoon, we met our favorite nine-year-old, Dashiell, at Brooklyn's Four & Twenty Blackbirds for an afternoon snack, i.e. a thinly veiled excuse to fulfillhis our latent, fat kid fantasy: a whole pie, a single fork, and a "book" that doubles as a fancy clutch. After all, if Thanksgiving is about family, then gluttony and retail therapy are its not-so-distant cousins.
Dressed in a suit, a Kanye West Deer Dana tee, and black felt trilby, Dashiell had very little qualms about eating in front of an audience that included an envious first-grader named Gigi, whose father only purchased her a cup of hot chocolate and no weekday slice of nice. (Side note: we could write a novella about said pie and its culinary merits, but we'll leave the glory in the bite.)
To be fair, Dashiell only got through a modest fistful of pie and most of his consumption was the gooey center, one strip of the lattice crust broken just so. Do you know what you're pretending to read? "No, but it's probably about a guy who is an idiot, but spends all his time trying not to act like one," he said. What does the pie taste like? we asked, hoping to have found the next Adam Platt. "Apple." And how many apples do you think went into that pie? "About 3,000," he replied, stone-faced. (The actual answer is between six and eight.) Perhaps not the most enthusiastic responses—we half-expected him to describe the tang of paperthin Cortlands and how the caramel teased the back of his tongue—but he had plenty of insight into Turkey Day, which we share below. Like Dostoevsky wrote in The Idiot, "Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case." Even if "the most difficult case" is simply wielding a fork crammed with butter and sugar.
1a. Pie Crust Is Just A Plate
"If I could have a pie just to myself, I would rip into it—just stab it all over and take big bites like I've done with this apple pie. I also like the filling way more than the crust. The crust is like a plate for the filling so I don’t eat that."
1b. BTW, Be Picky About Cream
"I would say 'No, thank you' to whip cream, because it actually makes the pie more plain tasting. But "Yes, please' to ice cream! The coldness of the ice cream pushes you to keep eating the pie. It’s like a surprise in your mouth that keeps you going until it’s gone."
2. Eat In Circles
"If my mom or my Mimi [grandmother] makes me a plate at Thanksgiving and there’s too much food on it, it kind of makes me feel overwhelmed and my stomach gets afraid. And they always put something they think I like, but I actually don’t. So I split my plate in to different pieces and then I eat each piece going in a circle so my seconds is really the next part of my plate."
3. With Family, Kindness Kills
"I’ve learned if my brother is bugging me, I just walk away. Or I’ll say, 'Please sto
On a recent weekday afternoon, we met our favorite nine-year-old, Dashiell, at Brooklyn's Four & Twenty Blackbirds for an afternoon snack, i.e. a thinly veiled excuse to fulfill
Dressed in a suit, a Kanye West Deer Dana tee, and black felt trilby, Dashiell had very little qualms about eating in front of an audience that included an envious first-grader named Gigi, whose father only purchased her a cup of hot chocolate and no weekday slice of nice. (Side note: we could write a novella about said pie and its culinary merits, but we'll leave the glory in the bite.)
To be fair, Dashiell only got through a modest fistful of pie and most of his consumption was the gooey center, one strip of the lattice crust broken just so. Do you know what you're pretending to read? "No, but it's probably about a guy who is an idiot, but spends all his time trying not to act like one," he said. What does the pie taste like? we asked, hoping to have found the next Adam Platt. "Apple." And how many apples do you think went into that pie? "About 3,000," he replied, stone-faced. (The actual answer is between six and eight.) Perhaps not the most enthusiastic responses—we half-expected him to describe the tang of paperthin Cortlands and how the caramel teased the back of his tongue—but he had plenty of insight into Turkey Day, which we share below. Like Dostoevsky wrote in The Idiot, "Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case." Even if "the most difficult case" is simply wielding a fork crammed with butter and sugar.
1a. Pie Crust Is Just A Plate
"If I could have a pie just to myself, I would rip into it—just stab it all over and take big bites like I've done with this apple pie. I also like the filling way more than the crust. The crust is like a plate for the filling so I don’t eat that."
1b. BTW, Be Picky About Cream
"I would say 'No, thank you' to whip cream, because it actually makes the pie more plain tasting. But "Yes, please' to ice cream! The coldness of the ice cream pushes you to keep eating the pie. It’s like a surprise in your mouth that keeps you going until it’s gone."
2. Eat In Circles
"If my mom or my Mimi [grandmother] makes me a plate at Thanksgiving and there’s too much food on it, it kind of makes me feel overwhelmed and my stomach gets afraid. And they always put something they think I like, but I actually don’t. So I split my plate in to different pieces and then I eat each piece going in a circle so my seconds is really the next part of my plate."
3. With Family, Kindness Kills
"I’ve learned if my brother is bugging me, I just walk away. Or I’ll say, 'Please sto