As American as Apple Pie

As a white American in the US, I’ve always been a part of the majority. However, in NZ I seem to be this curious creature from a land far away that everyone knows about, but many haven’t actually seen. The office is mostly made up of Kiwis, Brits and South Africans, while the street are full of people from just about everywhere.

In the Auckland office I’m the only American and I get some questions here and there, but mostly fly under the radar. It wasn’t until I was working in Wellington that I met (gasp) another American! Perin is a manager from the San Francisco practice who relocated with her husband about a month before I did. Well, this sparked several questions from a member on the project team about what does it mean to be American…or more specifically, what kind of food do we eat? Seeing as how US culture is such a ‘melting pot’ of traditions, it was a bit difficult to come up with one main thing (that wasn’t McDonald’s). After having a think about, Perin determined that there’s nothing more American than apple pie. Who can argue with that?

So, Perin and I got together one rainy night in an effort to bring some ‘culture’ and ‘diversity’ to the Wellington practice. We gathered our supplies and allowed the great Betty Crocker to guide our homemade journey…

It’s important to note that New Zealand does not support the semi-domestic working gal. Meaning, no premade pie crust, apple pie filling, etc. In fact, the grocery stores go out of their way to make it complicated. High Grade Flour. Self Rise Flour. We’re not shopping for Petrol for goodness sake, where’s the friggin’ All-purpose flour that Miss Crocker mentions in her Classic Apple Pie recipe! Needless-to-say, our creation was made completely from scratch and by the time midnight rolled around we had 2 beautiful, deliciously edible apple pies ☺