My late grandmother, bless her, was a terrible cook. Maybe it’s because she first began keeping house during the Great Depression, but her meals tended to be bland, under-seasoned and overdone.

She did have three notable exceptions: potato salad, which my family has been vainly trying to replicate for decades (she never wrote it down); gravies of any kind, which made sense, seeing that she used every last drop of moisture from her roasts in order to make them (you needed that mouthwatering-gravy to choke the dried meat down); and piecrusts.

The irony is that piecrusts can be tricky even for very good cooks, like my mother. But Grandma had it nailed. I remember one grocery shopping excursion in my childhood where Mom, surreptitiously selecting a refrigerated dough, jumped guiltily when she heard Grandma’s scornful voice just behind her: “Make your own!”

Pie is a popular dessert at this time of year (or any time of year!), and there as many different types of piecrusts as there are pie recipes. Here are some of my grandmother’s tips for turning out a basic crust, ideal for pumpkin, apple, pecan, mince and other favorite, holiday pies.

1. All the ingredients should be very cold before mixing them – the colder the better. This includes the flour, liquids and fat (butter, margarine, lard, shortening, etc.). The flour will absorb fat that’s over-warm, resulting in a tough crust. Afraid it will be too difficult to mix? My grandmother used to freeze the butter, then shred it into the flour using a cheese grater.
2. For a tender crust, use only enough liquid to moisten the dry ingredients, adding it very gradually.
3. Overworking the dough toughens it, so handle it as little as possible. Use your hands or a pastry blender to mix it.
4. To ensure even browning, use glass or dull metal pie pans (shiny metal keep the crust from browning properly). Don’t grease the pan. If you use a glass pie plate, reduce the oven temperature 25 degrees lower than temperature called for in the recipe.
5. Keep the crust from getting soggy by sprinkling it with a little sugar and flour before adding the filling. After the pie is through baking, set it on a wire rack to cool so the air can circulate underneath the pan, keeping the steam inside the crust from making the pie soggy.