‘The Simpsons’ Featured an Apple Pie Recipe Created by LA Chef/Radio Host Evan Kleiman

The crux of Sunday night’s installment of The Simpsons centered on a flashback to Homer’s childhood and some old family pie recipes. A recipe for apple pie, in real life, was created by radio host Evan Kleiman, and the dough, as it turns out, was the root of the show’s most famous catchphrase.

In the episode, Homer is angry with his father, Abe, over the confession of a long past deceit. We learn Homer had confidence as a child because of his time spent baking with his mother, who filled a lunchbox full of recipes and loving notes to her son. “You just taught me food is love,” a young Homer says. “I like myself.” Instructions for Kleiman’s/Mama Simpson’s apple pie briefly appeared on screen, for those Simpsons fanatics who might want to give it a shot at home.

20th Century Fox/The Simpsons

Now, to the dark confession: After Mom ran out on the family, Abe threw the lunchbox off a cliff in a drunken fit of rage and lied to Homer, telling him Mrs. Simpson took the recipes with her when she absconded. This compounded Homer’s feelings of abandonment and self-loathing and made him the man Simpsons viewers have come to know over the past three decades.

Kleiman has hosted Good Food on NPR affiliate KCRW in Los Angeles since 1997, and she was the chef-owner of iconic LA Italian restaurant Angeli Caffe for 28 years before it closed in 2012. She’s written several cookbooks, and in 2017, she was named as one of the James Beard Foundation’s “Who’s Who of Food and Drink in America.” Regarding her Simpsons pie recipe, she tweets it “might be the coolest thing I’ve ever been able to do.”

Sunday’s Simpsons episode, titled “Forgive and Regret,” was the 636th of the series, breaking the all-time record for a scripted primetime television. That mark was previously held by Gunsmoke, which ran from 1955 to 1975.

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• Evan Kleiman [KCRW]
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