Monday, November 30, 2009

Pie Spy




Pie Spy will help you find delicious pie in places outside your own home. How far from home? Hard to tell - wherever there is, as they say in the military, a target-rich environment.

This week, it's San Francisco. It was not my aim to search out all pie venues in the city on this trip. But I did want to explore Noe Valley - and a treasure trove it was.

Noe Valley Bakery (www.noevalleybakery.com) made the beautiful pies you see here. They sell them at the Saturday farmer's market behind the Ferry Building, but the bakery is located at 4073 24th Street, and is open Saturdays. With concoctions like pear-cranberry, and bona-fide double crusts (none of that crumble-topping jazz), they know their pies! You can get a good cup of coffee there; someone needs to convince them to sell their pie by the slice.


Across the street from Noe Valley Bakery is Peasant Pies (www.peasantpies.com), which offers all hand pies and a comfortable sit-down area in which to enjoy them. A small menu, but it offers something for breakfast, lunch, or snack, including for vegans and vegetarians. Is Noe Valley San Francisco's center of critical mass for pie?

Check in with Pie Spy for more sightings!


Tuesday, November 24, 2009
















Pie of the Week: Making the World Safe for Mincemeat!

This pie is wonderful because it can be slightly different every time I make it. It started out in the 1980's with a recipe I made up on the fly -with shredded apples, pears, and oranges, dark raisins, and a mixture of clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice (which is also very good).


But this Pie of the Week is a little different. I wanted to try a new kind of mincemeat filling that comes condensed into a 2-by-2.5-inch brick. I found this in the holiday cooking section of the grocery store. I thought it would be equivalent to the Crosse & Blackwell product in the big glass jar. Here at Sac Pie we are always experimenting and striving for maximum pie happiness.

Package instructions call for reconstituting the sticky brick of mince filling with hot water, and that doing so would create enough filling for an 8-inch pie. When it was all re-hydrated, though, it was not enough for a respectable 8-inch pie. The liquid was also a little too thin. So I peeled and chopped 2 MacIntosh apples and mixed them in with the store-bought filling.

The result was a spicy, chunky filling, pleasantly moist but not runny or gooey. A little bit sweet and agreeably tart.

A lot of people I tell about this pie will wrinkle their noses when they hear or read "mincemeat." As if I were pushing Grandma's fruitcake or bread pudding. But if you like those Thanksgiving spices and apples, raisins, and citrus, mincemeat pie is delicious and feels rich and decadent without being at all heavy. And please note, packaged "mincemeat" filling sold in the U.S. does not contain any animal products.

Try it! You might be surprised how much you like it.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Celebrate National Pie Day!

The American Pie Council has announced that January 23, 2010 is National Pie Day.

If you love to make, eat, photograph, throw, blog, draw, invent, document, critique, improve, or discuss pie, you can celebrate with me on January 23rd.

I will be throwing, um, a Pie Night Party on January 23rd (1/23, or as close as I can get). You can, too. Easy as pie!

I am using the announcement of National Pie Day to kick off my blog, Sac Pie, because Sacramento is a great place to create a rich, deep (-dish) culture of all things Pie. We have an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables to put in pie. We have a home-grown visual artist, Wayne Thiebaud, who obviously is a champion for pie. We enjoy a town full of creative bakers and chefs who can offer their pie-making talents.


What we don't have here in Sacramento is Pie Critical Mass. Maybe you have noticed this. Where can you go, of an evening, if you just want a nice piece of pie? And not just for dessert, for that matter, but for breakfast? The Real Pie Company was a valiant attempt to make Sacramento a pie lover's haven, but it was short-lived. Where can you get a fine, fresh pie to buy if you are too lazy or busy to make one yourself? Who will teach you how to make pie if you really want to learn? Who's making pies with healthy ingredients instead of partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening? Clearly, someone needs to take the cause of pie in this town seriously (but not too).

Here's what I'm proposing to do on this blog.
  • remind you why pie is an ingredient for a happy life

  • investigate and promote local Sacramento pie

  • promote and gauge interest in a local Sacramento Pie Festival

  • let you know what I'm baking each month

  • encourage you to share all things pie.

As you can see, there is a lot of room for the development of a community pie culture. Do your part to stand up for pie!