She puts Garfield on pie chart

Pie fixes everything.

That sign hangs in Eva May Hendrickson’s kitchen. It was a gift from her family on her last birthday.

See, Hendrickson’s family knows about pie. They know because their mother and grandmother has always baked them.

And now, at age 83, Hendrickson still bakes pies. Professionally.

“It’s something I need to do. When I say I ‘need’ to, well you can only mow so much lawn and clean so much house and quilt so many quilts,” the Garfield woman said. “I like to be productive and people seem to think they like my pies.”

So four mornings a week, she leaves the Palouse ranch house she shared with her late husband, Martin, and drives a couple miles into town, to the Garfield Cafe. Once there, she’ll bake a double-crust pie and a cream pie, sometimes others, then help with any prep work that needs to be done.

Friday is lemon meringue day. Other than that, the pie menu will vary.

“Each season seems to dictate the kind of pies I make,” Hendrickson said. “People seem to think they can eat apple pie anytime, but it doesn’t sell really well except in the fall when the wonderful apples are available.”

Banana cream or coconut cream. Sour cherry with peaches. Any kind of berry pie. Pumpkin pie, especially this time of year.

“The thing that I try to do is be consistent,” she said. “That’s my main goal. I think we achieve that quite well.”

She’s been baking pies for the cafe for a couple years. When Rebecca Sprague bought the business last December, Hendrickson was thrilled when she was asked to stay on.

Pies have been a part of her life for decades. She loves to bake. And as a child on the family ranch near Moscow, there were always lots of people to feed.

“I don’t remember when I learned to make pies, because usually mother had me bake cakes and cookies,” she said. “Then pies came into the picture, and bread.”

Clearly, however, she had developed a knack for pies.

“When my husband asked me to marry him, one condition was, he said, ‘Will you please make a lot of pie?’ ” she said. They were married 54 years, and “I made a lot of pie.”

Some of the recipes she’s known since childhood. Her cream pie recipe came from a flour sack in 1955. The lemon meringue she adapted from a Betty Crocker recipe. She jokingly calls her cooking style “primitive.”

“I grew up where we didn’t have electricity or refrigeration or running water and so forth, so my method is really primitive,” she said. “I just use a bowl and a spoon.”

She’s happy to share tips and recipes – as long as you don’t ask how she makes her from-scratch whipped cream. That remains a secret.

Her trick for apple pie it to use a combination of apple varieties. Her favorite? One or two Granny Smiths, a couple of golden delicious and a Braeburn. “That makes a nice combination,” she said.

She also urges bakers not to get too stressed over the pie crust.

“I can see why people are afraid of the crust because they scare you in the directions. ‘Just be careful, don’t put too much water in it. Just be careful, don’t da da da da.’ There’s so many don’ts instead of so many do’s,” she said. “One of the mistakes is people don’t use enough water. I find you need plenty of moisture so it sticks together well. If you get a little bit too much liquid, just put a little flour the board and roll (the dough) out and it takes care of it.”

Easy as pie.

Eva May’s Chocolate Cream Pie

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons salted butter

1 prebaked pie shell

Whipped cream

Chocolate shavings

Measure out dry ingredients and whisk together in a medium pot. Add milk and stir. Add eggs and stir together. Turn heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened, 10 to 12 minutes.

When it thickens, stir it for another minute or two. Remove from heat and add vanilla and butter; stir to combine until the butter melts. Let stand to cool, or place the pot in a ice water bath if you’re in a hurry. When cooled, pour mixture into a prebaked pie shell, top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Yield: 8 slices

Note: Hendrickson added, “This also can be used as an inexpensive pudding you can serve your family.”

Approximate nutrition per serving: 331 calories, 14 grams fat (3 grams saturated, 36 percent fat calories), 7 grams protein, 48 grams carbohydrate, 70 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber.