The Snow Child and Maple Walnut Pie

Eowyn Ivey's wintery The Snow Child is a perfect book for the middle of January.  Set in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1920's, the book tells the story of a late middle aged couple, Jack and Mabel,  who are childless and have moved to Alaska late in life to try to build a farm and a life away from everything and everyone they know.  What drives Jack and Mabel to Alaska is their grief over losing a child in infancy and never having a child after that.  The couple is ill equipped for the Alaska wilderness - Jack is in his 50's and has only farmed on fertile, temperate land in Pennsylvania.  Mabel is a tightly wound upper middle class woman who knows a lot about books, but not much about how work outside or how to make a home far away from civilization.  When we meet Jack and Mabel they distant from each other, just doing what they can to get by, and they are about to head into their first Alaskan winter without enough food or money to get them through.  At the first snow, Jack and Mabel make a child out of the snow and shortly thereafter they spot a little blond girl running around the forest outside their home.  It is this that changes everything, and sets the story in motion.  As with the book, this Maple Walnut Pie is also perfect for the middle of January.  It is the type of humble pie that you make when you don't have fancy or freshly picked ingredients around.  It was inspired by the walnut pies that Mabel would make to sell in town, in an effort to make some money until the farm was up and running.  I added the maple to make it a little more interesting.

Alaska is not a forgiving place.  Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child depicts a lonely place where every day is a struggle.  Jack and Mabel move there with the hope of taking wild land and turning into a working farm.  Not a realistic goal in light of Jack's age, their lack of children, and Mabel's inexperience working outside the home.  Making matters worse if the couple's isolation both from the rest of the world and each other.  Jack and Mabel are both deeply unhappy, Mabel in particular cannot get over the loss of her child and her inability to concieve after that.  She feels different than everyone else and angry at other's peoples happiness.  It was her idea to move to Alaska, so she did not have sit through any more uncomfortable family gatherings without children of her own.  Jack is unhappy for different reasons, mainly because Mabel is unhappy and also because he is afraid he will not be able to make the farm work and support them both.  At the beginning of the book, it appears that Jack and Mabel are not going to make it, or Jack will be forced to go work in a local mine to survive.  That is until the couple, who are incredibly insular, finally meet and get to know their neighbors - the Benson family - George and Esther and their three sons.  The Bensons, mainly Esther, sweep in as good neighbors do and pitch in and help Jack and Mabel survive.   But it is something that happens before Jack and Mabel open their lives to the Bensons that really changes thing.  At the first snow of the season, in a fit of playfulness Jack and Mabel decide to build a child out of snow.  The next morning, they see a little blond girl running through the forest, wearing the red mittens they had given their snow child.  From the beginning and through the end it is unclear if this snow child, who is named Faina, is real or a figment of their (or our) imagination.  She is a character straight out of a fairy tale - she has twigs in her hair, she gets overheated and seems like she is going to melt inside and she can hold a snowflake without it melting.  Jack and Mabel each form an attachment with Faina, and are both brought to life again by her presence.  But as readers we know something is off here - how can a child just appear out of nowhere, how can she possibly survive on her own in the Alaskan woods.   At first, Jack and Mabel try to domesticate Faina, but they soon learn that she does not want to be adopted, she does not want to live in a regular house.  When spring comes, Faina disappears and Jack and Mabel fear she was never real.  I won't reveal what happens next, so you can find out for yourself.  The Snow Child was a great combination of fairy tale and harsh reality.  As a reader I was really transported to Ivey's Alaska  - where nature rules and humans are lucky to survive.   As winter settles in for another month, I recommend you settle in with a piece of walnut pie and some tea and read The Snow Child.


Maple Walnut Pie, adapted from epicurious.com

Ingredients
Crust:
1 and 1/4 cup of flour
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons ice water, more if necessary
1 tablespoon sugar
1 stick butter, cut into small pieces and very cold
pinch of salt
Filling:
1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon maple extract or flavor (available at specialty foods shops and some supermarkets)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3 large eggs, beaten lightly
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound toasted chopped walnuts (about 2 1/3 cups) (toast the walnuts on a cookie sheet  in a 350 oven for 5 - 10 minutes before chopping them.)

Directions:

1. To make crust, combine the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor with the blade attachment.  Pulse to combine.
2. Add the butter and pulse until the butter is pea sized.
3. Whisk together the egg yolk and ice water.  Slowly add this mixture to the flour mixture as you continue to pulse.  You may need to add more water, pulse until the dough comes together in a large ball or a couple of medium balls.
4. Form the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic.
5. Refrigerate at least an hour.
6. Because of the egg yolk this dough may be harder to work with than traditional pie crust.  Be patient and if worse comes to worse just pat it until the pie plate.
7. When the dough has chilled for an hour, roll it out in a circle to fit a 9 inch pie plate.
8. Place it in the pie plate and decorate the edges as you desire.  Chill the shell while you make the filling.
9. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees
10. In a bowl, whisk all of the filling ingredients together except the walnuts.
11. Stir in the walnuts.
12. Pour into the chilled shell.
13. Bake in the lower third of the oven at 450 for 10 minutes.  Lower the heat to 350 and bake for thirty minutes, or until it is set in the center.
14. Let cool on a rack and then serve.