The best apple pies are simple. Use Red or Yellow Golden Delicious apples in a puchased pre-made crust. Slice apples with a vegetable peeler directly into the "bottom,' where you have added farina and a little sugar and vanilla first(keeps the botton from getting soggy). Every couple of layers lightly dust with granulated sugar and a hint of cinnamon. Remember, since you are starting with naturally sweet apples you hardly need any sugar. Heap the apples becuase they will shrink considerably during baking. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes to an hour. Enjoy.

A good apple pie doesn't need other seasonings. Try it and see. It should work great for the bacon lattice, too.

I tend to roll out my own crusts, so I can make cookies with the leftover pastry.

In the old days, rather than make a lattice, I'd use a nearly solid top crust, and use apple-shaped cutouts in it. But bacon will work, too . . .

You're saying no nutmeg at all? Hm. I can try it. I've also tended to use Jonagolds or other baking apples that retain their firmness. The sugar would, of course, be adjusted to the type of apple, but I do tend to dial that down. (That's one of my arguments against a lot of commercially made pies: they tend to be awfully sweet. Especially pecan pie, for some reason.)

Oh, and--if you EVER make an orange meringue pie, the sugar must be reduced drastically; the one time I tried it, I didn't adjust sufficiently, and it was just WAY over my sugar threshold.

No nutmeg--it doesn't need it. And the texture is just fine. Fuji apples seems to be abundant and relatively cheap this year. A few added to the Delicious would pick up the bite factor considerably. Please try one with a set of Pet-Ritz crusts, just to make it even easier. By the time you slice the apples into the pie, the top crust will have defrosted enough (if you set it near your oven during pre-heating) to set on top of the pie. I like to rub a little vanilla extract on the top crust before sprinkling with granulated sugar and cinnamon. Nothing beats that full top crust. Why cheat yourself of one of life's greatest pleasures?

Commercial pies are always too sweet for my taste. And they have "secret ingredients" like clove and cardamom that don't belong anywhere near a good apple pie. We live in a time where we can be extravagant and use hand-eating apples for pies. The natural sweetness beats the pre-cooked syrupy mess based on Granny Smiths that usually is thrown into pies.

Now I think I'll go make another apple pie.
I made one already this season before the temp rebounded back to the sixties. Since we had our first snow yesterday, it's time for a little free byproduct heat. . . Better turn on the incandescent bulb too.