Market Watch: Very berry, Very Prairie, very good

When juicy, color-saturated raspberries and blueberries made their first appearances at the Mill City Farmers Market, they immediately inspired thoughts of pie.

Just one problem: Temperatures were soaring into the upper 90s, with similarly punishing humidity levels, which meant that turning on the oven was not an option. Besides, if there's one sure way to trigger an anxiety attack, it's the suggestion that I make a pie crust. And don't get me started on the intricacies of a lattice top, which is my equivalent of creating a surface-to-air-missile program from scratch.

Thank goodness for Gary Robertson. Shoppers may not recognize him, as he's the unseen half of Very Prairie, the stand that features his partner Susan Dietrich's carefully crafted pantry items, including crackers, marshmallows, cheeses, crostinis and ketchups. But Robertson, who also bakes at the Wedge Co-op, turns out what are arguably the city's most glorious pies.

They start with a crust that teeters toward work-of-art status. When he's baking at home, Robertson prefers using lard, but for his farmers market customers, he keeps his pies vegetarian-friendly by making use of a creamy locally produced butter. "That's Susan's call," he said with a laugh. "She's running the roost there."

Robertson has amassed a few pie-making secrets during his long baking career. For maximum pie-crust tenderness, he relies upon a splash of vinegar. "It sort of relaxes it," he said. "It's something you don't see in a lot of recipes, but my mother did it quite a bit."

Then there's his 1:1 ratio of pastry flour to all-purpose flour, a trick he learned years ago from bakers laboring in the kitchens of the Minneapolis Athletic Club. "It's also really good for tender cookies," he said.

Robertson prepares dough in small batches, utilizing his KitchenAid mixer, and refrigerates it overnight. "That way I can pull it out of the refrigerator and use it when I need it," he said. "This is a dough that needs to be thoroughly chilled. If it gets warm, you don't want to use it."

For an added flavor layer, he almost always perks up seasonal ingredients with citrus zest and juices; lime added a tart ping to the strawberry-blueberry-raspberry-blackberry combo I purchased that day.

Armed with Robertson's helpful hints, I just might pull out a rolling pin this weekend. Wait, who am I kidding? I'm going to end up trying to pass off a Very Prairie pie as my own, and hope that my guests don't shoot me a "Yeah, right" smirk.