The Green Team makes dinner: 100 Mile Dinner is later this month in Greenfield

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies in the kitchen of the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield.

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies in the kitchen of the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies by slicing a variety of apples thin, leaving on the skins.

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies by slicing a variety of apples thin, leaving on the skins. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

Ella Ingraham making apple pies in the kitchen of the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield.

Ella Ingraham making apple pies in the kitchen of the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies in the kitchen of the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield.

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies in the kitchen of the Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew in Greenfield. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies by slicing a variety of apples thin and leaving on the skins.

Ella Ingraham makes apple pies by slicing a variety of apples thin and leaving on the skins. STAFF PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

By TINKY WEISBLAT

For the Recorder

Published: 10-14-2024 4:24 PM

We live in an area with abundant local sources of food. Greenfield’s Episcopal Church of Saints James and Andrew is getting ready to celebrate this year’s harvest with a “100 Mile Dinner.”

The dinner will take place next Saturday, Oct. 26, at 5:30 p.m. at the church. Tickets must be purchased by this Friday, Oct. 18.

The “100 Mile” moniker refers to the fact that the meal is planned so that the major ingredients hail from farms located under 100 miles from the church.

The menu sounds like a locavore’s delight. It will begin with a mushroom appetizer prepared by Livingstone Mycology in Williamsburg.

That will be followed by a choice of vegetarian (eggplant Parmesan) or meat (chicken cacciatore) entree with local-grain pasta and fresh salad. The meal will end with apple pie served with local ice cream.

I spoke last week with Fred Momaney, a church member whose family has been going to the church for seven generations. Momaney’s varied career has included managing restaurants.

He is an avid cook. Along with his wife and others, he offers soup and sandwiches to anyone who wants them every Sunday at the church.

The local dinner is an annual tradition for the church, Momaney told me. He called himself “the head cook, as it were.” He will be assisted by six or seven other members of the self-proclaimed Green Team, local food lovers who also love the environment.

Momaney savors the atmosphere in the church’s busy kitchen during such events. “I love this kind of stuff,” he enthused. “Camaraderie and working together … I love to cook; I love seeing people happy.”

He also believes not just in the church but in the mission of the Green Team.

He told me that he likes to spread the word about local eating, noting that both the meal next week and the discussion afterward will reflect that passion.

I asked whether the dinner presented any special challenges.

“The shopping,” he sighed. “You can devise the recipe and figure out how many people you are serving. You can’t get it all in one place … That’s Ella’s part. She’s our master shopper.”

Ella is Ella Ingraham. Ingraham does much of the organizing for the Green Team. She is responsible for the recipe for the apple pie that will be served next week.

Ingraham informed me via email that she adapted the recipes for both the pie crust and the filling from her 1975 edition of “The Joy of Cooking.”

“I think of the trial and error in making pie crusts as rewarding rather than terrifying,” she told me.

“Pie crusts are so flexible,” Ingraham wrote. “I have repaired many crusts that did not transfer all in one piece or were not quite evenly round. You can transfer dough to an area that needs it or fix tears with a very little bit of water to help the pastry blend together.”

The 100 Mile Dinner is limited to 50 eaters and costs $15 per person. Fred Momaney observed that the meal is kept low in cost on purpose; it is subsidized by the Green Team. “We’re trying to make it affordable for people,” he explained.

To reserve a place at the dinner, call Ella Ingraham at 860-684-4420 by Friday, Oct. 18.

In case you miss your chance to eat at the dinner this year, Ella Ingraham has generously supplied her dessert recipe.

100 Mile Apple Pie

Ingredients:

for the crust:

2 cups flour, sifted, plus flour as needed for rolling

1 teaspoon salt (omit this if you use salted butter)

1/4 cup cold water

2/3 cup butter or shortening, cut into chunks

for the filling:

5 to 6 cups cored and thinly sliced apples, unpeeled (Ingraham buys her apples from local farmers who use integrated pest management to restrict pesticide use. She likes to use a variety of apples for best flavor.)

1/8 tablespoon salt

1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons flour to thicken the apple juices

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon plus more to taste

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup white or brown sugar (optional; Ingraham frequently doesn’t add sugar to her apple pies unless the apples are really tart.)

1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest, or 1 teaspoon vanilla (optional; use only if your apples seem bland)

1/2 tablespoon butter, cut into tiny pieces

Instructions:

Begin with the crust. In a bowl, sift together the flour and the salt (if you are using the latter). Place 1/3 cup of this mixture in a small bowl, and stir water into that bowl to make a smooth paste. Place the remaining flour in a food processor with the butter or shortening.

The next step requires care. Use the pulse feature to avoid over-blending the butter into the flour. You are looking for some pea-sized chunks; those chunks make the crust tender when it is baked.

Add the flour paste to the butter/flour mixture and quickly pulse again to see if the dough holds together to form a ball. If it doesn’t, add a little more water, pulse, and evaluate. You are looking for a ball, but not a wet one.

Wrap the crust in waxed paper, and chill it in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour. You may skip this step if you’re in a hurry, but Ella Ingraham believes that it helps to slow gluten formation, which toughens the crust.

When you are ready to make your pie, preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Divide the dough in half, and sprinkle a handful of flour on your rolling surface and rolling pin. Roll each half of the dough into a 9-inch crust with a little extra room for the crust to hang over.

(You may have a little leftover dough, which you can roll with cinnamon and sugar and bake as an extra treat.)

Ingraham prefers to roll from the center outward, and she tries to turn and flip the pastry frequently so it doesn’t stick to the board or the rolling pin. Add more flour to your rolling surface if you need it to keep the pastry from sticking.

Gently roll the crust onto your rolling pin to transfer it to the pie pan, and arrange it in the pan, leaving a little crust around the edges.

To make the filling, combine all the ingredients except for the butter in a large bowl. Distribute them over the bottom crust. Use thinly sliced apples to fill in the spaces along the edge of the pie.

“The apples may look high in the middle, but they will cook down,” says Ingraham. “If you truly have too much apple filling, you can save the extra apple pieces and fry them in a little butter. Very yummy.”

Sprinkle the little bits of butter over the top of the apples randomly.

Roll out the top crust and transfer it to the pie. Prick the top crust to release steam while cooking. “Pricking the upper crust is fun because you can make any pattern that pleases you,” Ingraham notes.

“I have made pies with torn upper crusts that I use as part of the venting and consider decorative.”

Bake the pie for 10 minutes at 450; then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Bake the pie for 35 to 45 minutes longer, or until browned.

“Sometimes flours do not brown a lot so if the pie has gone for 35 to 45 minutes and the outer crust looks brown and I can see juices bubbling at vent holes, I’ll take it out of the oven,” says Ingraham. “Making a pie is always an adventure. I aim for the perfect crust, but I enjoy eating all of them.”

Makes one 9-inch pie.

Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning cookbook author and singer known as the Diva of Deliciousness. Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.