My hunch, if it was central VA and a BBQ place, was that it wasn't a pate sucree or something similar. It was probably an "American" pie crust. You can make a great flaky crust in about four minutes with butter, flour, and a little ice cold water. Can add a pinch of salt if you want. Leave some pretty large chunks of butter and make sure you do the fraisage. Like always, let it sit for an hour or so or even a day before rolling it out. Most likely based on cost and region, they probably used shortening, but don't. It tastes bad and makes your crust have a bad mouthfeel. Just use butter. Bake it well, maybe weighing it down, and make sure you bake it very close to the time you are going to use it. In other words, don't bake it today for use tomorrow or the next day. It's never as crisp as it is the first day. Let it cool, fill and serve immediately. The water from the filling will start to soften it right away, so you don't want to let that sit if you want to maintain the crispiness. This post was edited by rosesinny on Mon, Feb 18, 13 at 17:57

Well, I'm too late, but I also blind bake with parchment paper as a liner and beans as pie weights I bake mine at 425F for 25-30 minutes, or until nicely golden brown. I mostly tell by appearance, but 25-30 minutes gives me a crust that can take a second baking if that's necessary. Sometimes I remove the pie weights and finish baking for a longer time if it's a cream pie or something that will require no additional time in the oven after filling. Annie

I have been reading the many suggestions and I am relatively new to pie baking and have learned a lot here. As far as soggy crusts go, I happened on the thought that a light layer of cream cheese might taste good with making my first pie which happened to be strawberry. I used a small spatula to apply the cream cheese on the bottom and half way up. Several of my friends commented on the the fact that it was not soggy. Next I made a Canadian apple pie and I mixed the cream cheese (use about 3 ounces) with maple paste, and applied that as before. I also added 3 TBSP cornstarch to the maple syrup and liquid from apples I had seasoned and froze 6 months ago, cooked it and made a nice somewhat thickened sauce which I added the apples to and voilà, a nice firm crust and no runny pie. Also, thanks for the suggestions from Annie and Lindac to use pyrex, place pie on lower half of oven and start at 425f and lower in 10 min. to 350. Someone just brought me fresh blackberries and I'm all pumped up to make this pie without cream cheese to see if it works for me as well.

Save yourself some time and guesswork. Cook the filling on the range in a saucepan until it's done (apples are the consistency you like). Put into your pie pan and chill well. Make your crumbs as the bakery's do. Make your crumbs, spread on a cookie sheet with sides, and bake until done--will only take 15 minutes or so. Cool, put on your pie, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Much quicker, and you don't run the oven nearly as long. I often make apple pie by: baking the crust and crumbs at the same time (under 20 minutes of baking time), and filling with a range-top filling--which takes under 10 minutes to cook. Much more convenient.