She's my cherry pie...

Since practically the first day of Spring, Steph has been asking me to make her a cherry pie. It's her favorite pie. I keep telling her that she needs to wait for sour cherries to come into season, which usually happens in early July. But all the heat and rain we've had lately must have made the season come early, because I found sour cherries at the farmer's market this past Sunday. I was quite excited and I called Steph at work to tell her the good news. I made the cherry pie today using a combination of recipes. I use my mother's pie crust recipe, but I cut the water in half and substitute the other half with vodka (a trick I picked up from Cook's Illustrated). The vodka evaporates during baking, so the crust is still flaky and not tough at all, but the added moisture before baking makes the dough MUCH easier to roll out. For the filling, I used the recipe from the Williams-Sonoma Baking Guide. The pie turned out beautifully and it was super tasty as well.