An Upper Crust

If you want a great pie for Thanksgiving, you have two choices. You can peel and slice all those apples you picked at the farm and bake them in a perfect crust made from Vermont butter and flour. Or you can pop a frozen bake-and-serve Vermont Mystic Pie in the oven, let the aroma waft around your kitchen, and wow guests without the work. The apples in Stowe-based Vermont Mystic’s pies come from Champlain Orchards, a 158-acre, family-owned, environmentally conscious farm in Shoreham, Vermont. The butter comes from Cabot, a cooperative of hundreds of Vermont family farms. And the flour comes from King Arthur, another famous Vermont company. (The latter two ingredients combine for an astonishingly light and flaky crust.) The eye-catching boxes are even designed by a Vermont artist: Stephen Huneck, who’s nationally known for his Labrador-themed woodcarvings, illustrations, and children’s books. That said, you might want to tuck the store-bought evidence out of sight and take all the credit yourself. $9.99 at Whole Foods Market, various locations; www.vermontmysticpie.com.