Pie

Another silver lining of 2020 for me was the opportunity I took to learn how to make pie crust, and of course, the whole pie. Long story, but I wanted small hand pies, both of the sweet and savory kinds, to be able to take with me to work.  

We have a Cornish Pasty recipe that goes way back in the family. But it requires a bottle of ketchup to eat one pasty, it is so dry. I wanted to have tasty, moist and edible pasties for lunch, as well as make hand pies not unlike the ones you find at the grocery store. And, most of all, a real pie.

My first try at the pasty was better but not as good as I wanted. The pastry was still dryer than I would have liked.  

We had a bunch of berries about to go bad. (This seemed to be a real problem of 2020, where between my wife and I, we couldn’t eat fresh produce before it started to spoil. I did grow some decent tomatoes because of this problem, but that’s for another post.) I love a good berry pie, so I thought I could make one. I tried a different recipe for the pastry, wanting something flakier and sweeter than before. And I made the mistake of loading each handpie with too much filling. I didn’t realize that berry pie filling expands in the oven. Needless to say, there was a lot of leakage. Though the pies themselves were tasty.

Several pies and pasties later, and several different pastry recipes, it came time to make Thanksgiving pies. The first one I made was a berry pie, and it turned out well, because I had learned about the filling. And new pastry recipe I got from a friend and it turned out to be really flaky and a perfect complement to berry. (Thank you, Randy Davis, for posting it. I still don’t have the courage though to try the grapefruit filling.)

The second pie was an apple pie. Having learned that the filling expands in the oven, I kept the filling of the pie relatively low. What I didn’t know was, with apple, the opposite is true. So I ended up with more of an apple tart--a thin layer of concentrated apple and cinnamon between two layers of pastry.  

Just because one crust worked alright, didn’t mean I stuck with that for everything. And the principles behind berry pie filling volume and apple pie filling don’t work the same. This idea of pastry and filling diversity can be applied to research methods. Too many of my clients initially get great insights from a survey, then that’s all they want to do. Or from online qualitative, and that boxes in their thinking on how to get insights. And thus the requests come in of “let’s do a survey” or “let’s do a HatchTank.” It is far better to lead with what you need to learn than how to get there. That’s whether you do it yourself or partner with a researcher. Put the what needs to be learned before how you need to get there.

 And above all, have more pie. 

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I have been involved in the market research field, as a corporate-side research manager, a bulletin board platform co-founder, and then a research agency owner for over 35 years now. I have learned a thing or two about doing research better. My intent with these articles is to share practical and thought provoking ideas to elevate your research game, whether you are the person conducting the research or the person using it to make better decisions. (Or if you wear both hats!) 

 Twitter: @TripleScoopPMRPie