Here's How to Make Your Own Pie

There is a kind of teaching that gives you the answer.

And there is a kind of teaching that gives you the ability to find the answer.

Depth Guide is interested in the second kind.

So today, I’m going to teach you how to make a pie.

Not my pie.

Your pie.

And I’m going to deliberately leave some things out.

Because someday you are going to find yourself with ingredients nobody has written a recipe for, tools you’ve never used, and a problem you haven’t practiced before.

I want you to be okay when that happens.

Don’t Memorize the Recipe

A recipe is a solution to a particular situation.

Someone had particular ingredients, particular equipment, particular preferences, and particular problems.

They figured out something that worked.

That’s useful.

But the deeper knowledge is knowing why it worked.

A pie crust needs structure.

It needs ingredients that provide structure, tenderness, texture, and enough moisture to bring everything together.

The filling needs flavor.

It needs body.

It needs to account for moisture.

It needs sweetness, acidity, spice, or other elements that make the whole thing work together.

Those are principles.

And principles travel.

Recipes don’t always.

Look at What You Have

Maybe you have apples.

Wonderful.

Maybe you don’t.

Maybe you have pears.

Maybe you’ve found a strange fruit at a market you’ve never visited before.

Maybe someone handed you something and said:

“I don’t know what this is, but I think you can cook it.”

Good.

Don’t panic.

Ask questions.

What is it made of?

How much water does it contain?

How does it behave when heated?

Is it sweet? Acidic? Starchy? Fibrous?

What does it need?

You aren’t looking for the correct answer from a book.

You’re trying to understand the thing that is actually in front of you.

That’s a Depth Guide skill.

The Strange Ingredient Is Not the Problem

Unfamiliar things are going to happen.

You will encounter foods you haven’t eaten.

People you don’t understand.

Situations you’ve never practiced for.

Problems nobody warned you about.

The temptation is to say:

“I don’t know what to do.”

Sometimes that’s true.

But there’s another sentence available:

“I don’t know yet. Let me look.”

That little word changes everything.

Yet.

You don’t need omniscience.

You need curiosity.

Make a Hypothesis

Suppose your mysterious fruit is extremely juicy.

You now know something important.

If you put a pile of it directly into a pie crust, you may create something closer to fruit soup with a pastry roof.

So perhaps you drain some liquid.

Perhaps you cook the fruit first.

Perhaps you add something that absorbs moisture.

Perhaps you use less liquid elsewhere.

You don’t need someone to tell you which answer is correct.

You can reason from what you observe.

Then you try.

Sometimes You Ruin the Pie

This is important.

You are going to make bad pies.

You may make spectacularly bad pies.

You may produce something that should probably never be shown to another human being.

That’s okay.

Taste it.

Look at it.

Ask what happened.

Was the crust tough?

Too much moisture?

Not enough?

Was the filling too sweet?

Did the fruit need more acid?

Did the heat behave differently than you expected?

Don’t turn the failed pie into a verdict about yourself.

Turn it into information.

The pie is data.

Try again.

The Goal Is Independence

If you memorize an exact recipe, eventually you will encounter a situation where the recipe doesn’t work.

If instead you learn how to reason about ingredients, texture, heat, moisture, structure, flavor, and mistakes…

then you can encounter something you have never encountered before.

And you can still make dinner.

Maybe you will invent something better than the original recipe.

Good.

That’s the point.

A Teacher Should Become Unnecessary

I’m not trying to make you good at following instructions.

I’m trying to make you good at figuring things out.

A teacher can become a cage if the student learns:

“I need my teacher to know what to do.”

A better teacher eventually becomes unnecessary.

You learn the principles.

You learn how to observe.

You learn how to experiment.

You learn how to recover from mistakes.

You learn how to ask for help when you actually need it.

And eventually you stand there holding an ingredient nobody has ever shown you before.

And you think:

“Okay. Let’s figure this out.”

That’s the skill.