Barbara Walch
She received her first cookbook in 1963—Betty Crocker’s New Good & Easy Cookbook. It was a bridal shower present from her mother, Marie Pinturich, and although she doesn’t use it much these days, it’s obviously still a prized possession.
“I learned how to cook from my mother, who was basically a meat and potatoes kind of cook,” Kim King says. “Mother didn’t cook with a lot of herbs and whatnot, so she went through the cookbook and put lines through things that she would not typically use in a recipe. That way I would know how to cook them so the dishes would taste like hers.
“See, in this recipe she crossed out bay leaf, garlic, because she didn’t cook with those things,” she continues, proudly pointing to her mother’s notations. “So that’s how I started cooking.” But it wasn’t long after she married her husband, John, that Kim found herself experimenting more—cutting recipes out of magazines to try, swapping recipes with friends, and buying cookbooks.
“The more I cooked, the more enjoyment I got out of it,” Kim says. “And to this day I find it very relaxing and rewarding. And you would think that as many years as I’ve been cooking, I would pretty much know it all by now. But that’s what I find fun about cooking, you are always learning, whether it’s discovering a new ingredient, different tricks, new tools, whatever.”
Even though she can cook just about anything, Kim says she actually has become known in their circle of friends for her baking expertise. When she first learned how to bake, everything had to be made totally from scratch. But over the years, thanks to the availability of more convenience products, she has learned how to shortcut recipes for those days when spending five hours in the kitchen baking just aren’t an option.
“Like when I make Boston Cream Pie, I make a scratch cake, homemade custard for the filling, and chocolate ganache for the topping,” she explains. “But for my shortcut version, I use a boxed yellow cake mix, instant pudding mixed with Cool Whip for the filling, and heat up a jar of dark hot fudge ice cream topping to pour over it.”
She continues, “Coconut cake with lemon curd filling. Again in my shortcut version, I would make a white cake from a box and use lemon curd you can buy in a jar. Glaze for my fruit pies? I usually make my own but you can buy pie glaze now in the produce section of the supermarket. So you can still make something very tasty if you don’t have much time. And truly I’ve fooled people many times when they thought it was my homemade recipe and I was under the gun and had to make my shortcut version.”
But one thing Kim says she always makes from scratch is her pastry dough. “Always, because it’s easy to do, there are only three ingredients, and it keeps in the freezer for two to three months. 
If we have last minute guests, I can pull one or two rounds of dough out of the freezer and thaw it to make something that day. I use the same basic pastry dough for both sweet and savory dishes.”
Made with just flour, cream cheese, and butter, it’s the crust she uses when she wants to make a scrumptious fresh strawberry pie or pecan pie with a surprise filling, or delectable desserts like pastry wrapped apples. Or to make savory dishes like piquant tomato and onion pie, decadent pastry wrapped tenderloin stuffed with lobster, and easy, cheese-y beef galette.
“It’s the most pliable, flexible pie dough I’ve ever made,” Kim adds. “It’s also very forgiving. You know how with other pie dough recipes, if it gets too dry, you’re patching it here and there. Not with this one. You can literally roll this out with the palm of your hand. It’s virtually foolproof!”
Impressed, I ask Kim, “So where did you get such a fabulous recipe for pastry dough?” She smiles broadly, and answers: “My mom!”
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