How To Make Apple Pie From Scratch

Want apple pie? Well, first you'll need butter, and that means a trip to the farm, where three spotty cows stand by a water trough beside a big red barn, mooing softly while they make the milk. Turn the page and there's an apple tree heavy with red fruit, a row of tall sugar cane, a whisper about cinnamon. This is the long, lovely, roundabout truth of making something from scratch: it starts way, way back at the very beginning, one ingredient and one journey at a time.

It's a curious-kid's delight, the kind that turns "where does food come from?" into a story you act out together at snack time. Fat, sturdy pages stand up to flour-dusted fingers and a hundred re-reads, because around here the best recipe is always the one you read out loud.