It's Not Me, It's the Quince

When I talk about quince, people tend to react in a way similar to conversations about unicorns, leprechauns, and or the Easter Bunny. Quince are imaginary fruits, especially to most Americans. None of my friends are quince-o-philes like me, in fact, I'm the only person I know who's ever had a quince. (My first quince experiences was when I lived in Ankara, my host mother made an incredible poached quince dripping in honey.)

I religiously read certain food blogs and it seemed to me in the last few weeks that everyone is talking about quince. I was really starting to get sad, given the lack of quince in the mid-Atlantic region. Imagine my surprise then when at the farmers market two weeks ago there was a crate labeled "QUINCE" overflowing with bumpy, roundish green-yellow kinda fuzzy and sweet smelling goodness. I bought five.

And yes, they were expensive. But I'm okay with that. I'll go easy on the lattes to balance out buying a half dozen of them a week until their season is finished and they vanish again.

Once I bought the quince, I realized I wasn't entirely sure what I planned to do with them. Luckily, a special occasion presented itself: my good friend Andy and his father were in town looking for an apartment (Andy recently took a government job and is moving here). I wanted to make something special for Andy (and his father, Tim, who I am a huge fan of). After a lovely dinner at Mai Thai - what can I say, everyone I take there loves it - I had Andy and Tim back to my apartment for a quince and blackberry pie.

I bought the pie crust from the My Organic Market in my neighborhood. Because I'm very, very lazy. I used blackberries because, quite honestly, I had a bag of them in my freezer. Again, lazy.

Here's the pie before it was cooked. There isn't an after photo because as soon as it was done, it was eaten. Tim, Andy, Amanda, and I all had pieces. The leftover slices went to my neighbor Amalea and her brother Austin, who had been redoing the tile in her bathroom all week and needed something sweet and homemade. But imagine this photo only browner and you pretty much got the gist of what it looked like cooked.

Quince Blackberry Pie

1 pre-made pie crust

5 quince, peeled, cored, and cut into bite-size chunks

4 cups water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 stick margarine (I used Earth Balance)

1 cup of oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup frozen blackberries

*I basically just made all those measurements up because I just - made the pie - and didn't measure anything, I'm sorry.

1. Peel, core, and chunk up the quince. Don't cut yourself, they're hard as a rock.

2. In a big pot, dissolve the sugar, add the cinnamon stick and vanilla. Drop the quince in to poach them.

3. While this is going on, coat the pie crust in margarine, prick a few fork holes into it, and bake it so its nice and brown.

4. When the quince are soft and sweet, ladle them out into the warm, golden pie crust.

5. Strategically place blackberries on top of the quince in some sort of artistic fashion.

6. Cover with a crumbly topping you've made out of margarine, oats, brown sugar, and ground cinnamon.

7. Bake at 375 degrees until the top is crunchy, the blackberries have melted slightly into the quince, and the crust is darker but not burned.

8. Serve it with vanilla ice cream and make your guests extremely happy.

Otto, taking a nap on our futon while Amalea was doing demo work on her bathroom tile. We seem to like to end posts with cute animals - so there you go!

Happy Eating!

-Robin-