Even a pie therapist needs professional development. Or maybe there's just no nicer way to spend a Sunday afternoon than bumping along in the back of a pickup truck, perched on a hay bale, out to pick fresh apples for a pie.

Tipped off by a friend who lives in Petaluma and knows my fondness for (one might say obsession with) pie, I headed out to the rolling hills of rural Sonoma last weekend, joining 19 other local pie enthusiasts for Two Rock Ranch's Orchard to Oven Pie Workshop, a three-hour event hosted by ranch owner and orchardist Kathy Tresch and taught by chef, caterer, and blogger Meloni Courtway.

Two Rock Ranch has been in the Tresch family since 1905, when the family of Kathy's husband Joe started it as 300-acre dairy farm. Over the years, they added to the farm piece and piece, and it now stretches across some 2000 acres. The dairy was certified organic in 1995, the second (after Straus) organic dairy in California. Straus Organic Creamery has kindly donated the butter for all the classes, making our pies truly local, since the Tresch dairy supplies nearly two-thirds of the milk processed by Straus.

Kathy's pet project now is Olympia's Orchard, 8 acres of fruit trees spread out over several fenced-in parcels throughout the farm. Since 2004, she's planted some 500 trees, with over 50 varieties of apples alone. Many of them are hard-to-find antique and heirloom types, such as Cox's Orange Pippin and Kidd's Orange Red, along with newer varieties like Freedom, Pink Pearl, and Gold Rush, all chosen especially for the area's mild climate, so unlike the icy winters that many of the more common East Coast varieties (Macintosh, Macoun) require. The trees, planted on dwarfing rootstock and farmed organically, are charmingly petite, laden with fruit that all but drops into our hands. Pick 10 each, Kathy tells us, and it's nearly impossible to stop plucking the fat bright-red Jonathans, tart-sweet and perfect for pies.

Before we start, Kathy tells us a little of the history of the place, its beginnings as a land of plenty for the native Miwoks, then as a farm homestead for Charlie and Lena Hall. They plowed with horses, ate their dinners off dishes brought West by covered wagon. Kathy holds up Miwok mortars and pestles, horseshoes and bits of blue-patterned china that she's found in the dirt over the years.

Once our bushel baskets are half-filled, we pile back onto the hay bales for the bumpy ride back to the ranch. There, we find a long table on the porch lined with bowl after bowl, bags of flour and sugar, and Meloni, smiling in a white chef's jacket.

Meloni, a California Culinary Academy grad who was dubbed the "Best Baker in America" by no less than Martha Stewart, thanks to killer recipes for Pumpkin Scones and Persimmon-White Chocolate Bread Pudding, says this is her very favorite job ever, talking and making and eating pie. She tells us that those of us with chilly hands are born pie makers; the warm-handed ones need to make sure they use cold butter, very cold ice water, and a good pastry hoop to keep their dough light and flaky, not oily-warm.

Another tip? Ignore all those recipes that reference "small peas" in describing the perfect texture of pie dough. Don't think peas, think oatmeal, says Meloni. This is a surprise to me, since I've always leaned towards the rough and nubbly to get maximum flakiness. Use short, sharp downward strokes of the pastry hoop, she says, and turn the bowl as you go.

I keep going, farther than I usually would, until my butter and flour are as sandy as quick-cooking dry oatmeal. In goes the water, and the dough is patted into shaggy mounds, then set aside to chill.

Now it's onto the apple-peeling and slicing, and soon we're rolling out our doughs and piling them high with cinnamon-sugared apples. The pies go into the outdoor brick oven that Kathy has been tending.

Photo by Stephane von Stephane

Rinsing the sugar and butter from our hands, we wander into the great room at the lodge, where a fire is burning in the fireplace under a massive, glowering mounted buffalo head and there's Baletto Russian River Valley gewurztraminer to sip, delectable apple-arugula-bacon-cheese flatbread and blue cheese, apple, honey and walnut crostini to nibble, and half a dozen different types of apple to sample.

When the platters are reduced to crumbs, we head back outside, to see all our beautiful pies--each so different, though we all used the same ingredients--laid out on the porch, hot and steaming with the scent of autumn.

Register for the season's final Oven to Orchard Apple Pie Workshop on Sunday, Sept. 26th at 10am. $48/person includes orchard tour, pie class, apple tasting, wine and apple-inspired snacks, and your own apple pie to take home. Workshop lasts approximately 3 hours.

The author's pie

Farms...in Berkeley? Well, dairy cows may not be drinking lattes on Shattuck Avenue, but there are working urban farms in the Bay Area. So if you're garden-deprived or just longing to get dirty without leaving town, here are a few opportunities to dig in, learn, and taste what's growing in your city's backyards.

On Tuesday, Oakland's City Slicker Farms is hosting a BBQ and a showing of the movie "Fresh" at Fitzgerald and Union Plaza Parks (34th and Peralta in West Oakland). Come on down, meet your neighbors, and find out how City Slickers is going to turn part of the park into a new community farm. Can't make it on Tuesday? Check their website for volunteer hours at one of their half-dozen community farms, all dedicated to growing affordable produce for West Oakland.

Graze the Roof is Glide Memorial Church's innovative community-gardening project. The church's rooftop garden focuses on hydroponic and container gardening, and hosts community workdays every weekend and workshops throughout the month.

What could be a better mitzvah, or good deed, than growing food for those in need? That's the philosophy between Congregation Emanu-el's The Pe'ah Garden in Colma. This garden in, yes, a cemetery (hey, it's Colma. What did you expect?) is planted, maintained, and harvested by congregation members and volunteers, with the bulk of the harvest going to the San Francisco Food Bank. Jonathan Silverman, who coordinates the garden volunteers, also teaches ongoing gardening workshops throughout the year.

The nice folks at the Garden for the Environment in the Inner Sunset are compost evangelists. Put your soggy leftovers into the green bin, sure, but carrot peels, wilty lettuce leaves, grass clippings and more --anything that's strictly plant matter--can get turned into a fabulous soil booster right there in your own backyard. (Or even under the sink, if you get a wormbox working). Composting workshops are always on the class roster, or you can come to one of the twice-weekly workdays (Wed 10am-2pm; Sat 10am-4pm) and get a more impromptu lesson as you fork, turn, and rebuild the garden's three ever-evolving piles. Since this is an educational demonstration garden, not a farm, the amount of fruit and veggies produced here is small, but depending on the season, helpful workers should go home with at least a salad's worth of greens. Plus, there's often Arizmendi pizza to share after the morning's work.

Play hooky Monday afternoon and join the Marin Organic Glean Team, a new project from Marin Organic. Every Monday from 4-6pm, volunteers gather at a different local organic farm to "glean," or pick what's left over after the day's commercial harvest is done. This second harvest is then donated to local school lunch programs. And of course, volunteers get some too. This Monday, the gleaners are converging on Paradise Valley Produce in Bolinas.

If you've ever buzzed down 280 to the airport, you've passed what's probably San Francisco's largest urban farm. It's very easy to miss, but it's there: the Alemany Farm, at the southern edge of Bernal Heights. Like most urban farms, it's also an educational non-profit, working with kids and teens from the surrounding public housing along with energetic volunteers. There's a lot growing here, from strawberries, carrots, and collards to green beans, broccoli, kale, lettuce, tomatoes, flowers, fruit trees, squash, wild blackberries, and more. Workdays (alternate Saturday and Sundays, plus Monday afternoons) end with a harvest, and the haul is divided up between workers.