Pie

Kira Eying from Baltimore was seeking a recipe for oyster pie. She said her husband's grandmother used to make it but no one in the family can find her recipe. She said was it was similar to an oyster stew, with potatoes, carrots and other vegetables but baked in a deep-dish pie plate with a flaky crust. Mike Herbert from Sykesville shared a recipe for oyster pie that he said came from his mother, Dorothy Herbert. He said he makes it at least once a year and "because the taste of the oysters is so delicate, very little seasoning is needed and as the dish cooks the oyster flavor permeates the vegetables.

The dismantling of Exelon Corp.'s Zion Station nuclear power plant near Chicago is setting several remarkable precedents. It's the biggest-ever nuclear decommissioning job in the United States, says Exelon, which is seeking permission to buy Constellation Energy and Baltimore Gas & Electric. The enterprise will take a decade, employing hundreds. Instead of separating the radioactive debris from the nonradioactive, the usual method, workers will ship most of the rubble to Utah and dump it in the desert.

That's a relief. The last time a Travel Channel food show featured Baltimore, everyone was royally annoyed. But Andrew Zimmern's “Bizarre Foods America” show has a different agenda than Anthony Bourdain's “No Reservations,” which baked Baltimore into an unsavory “Rust-Belt” pie back in 2009. Baltimore came across better, and more accurately, on the Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay episode of “Bizarre Foods” that premiered on Monday. “Bizarre Foods” works so well because Zimmern is genuinely interested in what he's experiencing but also sensitive to a city's feelings.

Last year at this time, I used this space to sketch out a few basic thoughts about the one element of Thanksgiving even more crucial than turkey: pie. In hopes of spreading the gospel of the homemade crust — and in recognition of the fact that, according to The New York Times food section, pie is finally starting to get some of that hipster cred that's been over-lavished on cupcakes — I've taken the opportunity to revise and reprint some...