I've made three types of pie so far this summer: sour cherry, blueberry-peach, and blueberry-peach-mystery-ingredient-to-be-revealed-below.
I knew that sour cherries make my favorite type of pie. It's too bad they're only in season for about 48 hours. But at least I spotted them in the store in time to buy some. I needed to make something for our neighbors' barbecue, so I decided I could throw the pie together in time, once I realized Fannie Farmer (my favorite cookbook) did not recommend chilling the basic pie crust dough before rolling it. Geez, I've made pies for years thinking I had to have that half-hour step! But sure enough, I didn't chill the crust dough and the pie was outstanding (one of my all-time best, thanks largely to the cherries). It was pretty, too -- the lattice-top crust came out really well.
The next time I made a pie, I had some blueberries and peaches. This time, I realized I had not chilled the shortening beforehand. Uh oh. So I looked in Fannie Farmer to find out how urgent shortening-chilling was... and found there was nothing about it in there. The crust came out fine, so there's another step saved forever! (I'll have to look in my other books to see why THEY be chillin'. Maybe so it handles better? It was good enough for me this way.) Unfortunately the peaches were about a day short of being ideally ripe, and somehow the blueberry-peach combo, while pretty and tasty, just wasn't in the same league as the sour cherry filling.
So for the most recent pie, I had a bunch of blueberries and (ripe) peaches, but wanted to add something with a little zing. Something a little sour... something that cooked up to be soft like blueberries and peaches, in about the same amount of time... something in season... something reasonably easy to prepare... aha! rhubarb! I used 3.5 cups blueberries, 3.5 cups peaches, and 2 cups sliced rhubarb for two pies. And I was just tickled to death, as my grandmother would say, that they were REALLY REALLY GOOD.
My other pie tips, besides Fannie Farmer: Organic palm oil (sold as organic shortening) works very well and has no trans fats. Use two knives to cut the shortening into the flour. Add the ice water a tiny bit at a time. Roll with a marble rolling pin on parchment paper. Use a chopstick for crimping the crust. Cook in a stoneware Pampered Chef pie pan if your sister is nice enough to give you one. Use one of those rings to cover the edge of the crust (so much easier than foil). Try to belong to a family of pie-worshippers who will treat you like a Goddess of Pie.