The Ugly Pies of Winter 2011

One reason we have been loath to blog lately is that we cannot get excited about the way our pies are looking when they come out of the oven. We hesitate to use even the word 'homely' to describe these pie gargoyles. We cannot even bear to photograph them.

We were also in the tropics on January 23, National Pie Day, and we hope you all dedicated yourselves to observance of this sacred day. We ate a tiny slice of apple pie from one of the local Hawaiian bakeries as part of our fest.

As we recall, we've produced a couple of good lookers, pie-wise, since we last blogged at you. For Thanksgiving - the Mince, the Apple - but you've seen one pretty pie, you've seen them all, and we don't have any more tricks up our sleeves that improve those two models. And there was a nice potato-cheese-rosemary-leek gallette right after New Year's. But these were followed by a couple of bizarre-looking quiches, a funky looking lumpy blueberry pie, and...

What were we thinking? We had it in our heads to try out a recipe we found online during the summer for Chocolate Cherry Pie. In concept, we thought it sounded luscious and decadent. It called for whole pitted cherries and chunks of good dark chocolate. Our pals at Trader Joe's had the cherries, frozen, for a song, and we sacrificed one of our TJ 70% chocolate bars for the project. The idea, we think, was that the chocolate would melt to make a velvety coating with the cherry juice, and it would be all wine-dark and beautiful, and need no other embellishment.

It was enough to put one off pie-bakery for quite awhile. Although it tasted pretty nice when it was warm from the oven, it was a little gooshy. The frozen cherries did not cook down - this made the upper crust lumpy and the inside wet. When it cooled completely, the chocolate hardened back up into hard stringers throughout the filling. The cherries had no distinctive cherriness at all. POPS, weirdly, said he didn't think even ADDING MORE CHOCOLATE would improve the pie. Worse, we had the uncomfortable and unappetizing notion, looking down at the dessert plate, that we were eating a pie made with whole Kalamata olives. Yikes! Somebody call the law!

It all seems like a bad dream now. Next time, if there is a next time, we will make a compote on the stove of some of the cherries, and add this "jam" to the rest of the fruit. Using fresh cherries and mashing them a little to promote more thorough cooking of the fruit would be a good idea. Have you got any other ideas for ways to improve the outcome?

We have stepped back from the abyss since then to our old familiars. We also found some nicely designed ceramic pie dishes, about 6 inches in diameter, at the Crate and Barrel outlet ($3.50 each) that motivated us to get rolling again. It's time to start using the frozen fruit we squirrelled away in summer - we've never needed a taste of summer more than we do in February. We tried the compote approach with this weekend's pies made from frozen blueberries, and it seemed to help break down the whole berries. The compote just by itself, made with a spoonful of raw honey and a half teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, is irresistable. But that pie wasn't pretty. POPS reminds me that, maybe a lattice top will allow a lot of liquid to boil off so these frozen berry pies are a little less liquidy inside. Good tip - he's smart, and he's cute, too.

Peach Pie and Plutonium Have a Lot In Common

It was there one moment, and gone the next.

High-speed filmography was only able to capture these few moments before the lovingly created pie you see here winked out of existence. You can see here that it has already been substantially depleted WHILE it was being observed - a quantum pie if ever there was one! Like plutonium, these things have a very short half-life, so they aren't meant to be stable under natural conditions.

We scarcely remember how delicious it was. This one held a blend of cling peaches that weren't great for eating raw, a couple of beautiful large freestones from the Sunday farmer's market, and we sneaked two nectarines in as well.

Like plutonium and most pies around here, this one took exponentially longer to be created than it did to be annihilated by the inexorable force of nature (in this case, the guy with the fork...). Those peaches were a booger to cut and peel, but the result, however fleeting, was delightful. You really cannot fail with good fruit. Fortunately, POPS acquired a new passel of peaches yesterday -- Last Chance, Summer Lady, and what was that other variety, Shropshire? Braunfels? Idaho Red??? -- so that we can make another. And freeze some fruit for later in the year.

Now is the time to be consuming your peaches and tomatoes like there is no tomorrow, because, as far as those plants are concerned, there IS no tomorrow. Freeze, can, make sauce, salsa, jams, conserves, slice, or just eat them. But above all, MAKE PIE WHILE THE SUN SHINES, my friends. And watch them both disappear.

Sac Pie Summer

Sac Pie has been on hiatus awaiting cooler nights. For as much as we love our pie, we dislike using the oven when it's warm outside. And we equally dislike using our air conditioner to cool down a house heated by an oven. Thus we are in the dog days of pie procrastination.

But just so you know that we are NOT doing absolutely nothing...we are dreaming of fantastical, improbable pies:

sweet tomato (maybe chutney?) pie
blackberry chocolate pie
cherry chocolate pie
melon-lavender chiffon pie
concord grape pie (not so improbable, but not made much)
fig, rosemary, and almond pie

• We are procrastinating the peach pie and the jumbleberry pie for just another couple of weeks.


• We have stocked the freezer with about 7 pounds of blueberries, and need to process some peaches for the deep freeze while the season is in full production.


• We mentally invent pie flavors that would be complemented nicely with Haagen-Dazs Five Ginger ice cream.


• We check the figs dutifully each day, but our back yard tree will only yield enough this year for a few snacks.


• We daydream about eating a slice of fruity, spicy, velvety pie on the porch on a breezy summer evening just before the sun goes down.

Truthfully, we have not been so crazy about spending a lot of time in front of the computer screen, or in the kitchen, when there is only so much gorgeous outdoor time to savor.

Therefore we must delay gratification with respect to pie until we've had our fill of indolent, indulgent, incandescent, incomparable summer. And we hope you are enjoying it just as much as Sac Pie.

Pie Spy - Z-Pie in Placerville

Pie Spy would be remiss if Z-Pie had not had a place in its annals. Do you not know? Have you not seen? Z-Pie, at 3182 Center Street in Placerville (www.z-pie.com) is serving up a full menu of savory light meal-size pies, as well as soups, salads, and desserts, in a comfortable and inviting space with white tablecloths, orchids, and cool background jazz. The most abundant choices for pie in Placerville are right there downtown.

Z-Pie emphasizes fresh and seasonal ingredients, and lists them all on the menu. The pie dough is made with butter, and each one is about 4 inches in diameter, golden brown, double-crusted, and fresh-tasting. No artificial ingredients and a commitment to recycling and reducing waste are a hallmark of this eatery. Z-Pie’s menu reflects the fruit and vegetable bounty of the surrounding orchards and farms in Placer County. Although they have a playful attitude toward their flavor combinations, we were pleased to see that they tweak familiar flavors into something distinctive, but don’t venture out on the flaky edge toward weirdness.

There are about a dozen savory fillings to choose from – plus two for breakfast. You can walk in and take the little pies home with you – frozen – for later. The restaurant also has beer and wine if that seems like the thing to have with your pie.

Best of all, you can get out of there with two happy tummies for under 15 bucks.

On scorching Sunday afternoon, Pie Spy and POPS made our first visit to Z-Pie. We walked down Main Street, ducked in at Sierra Rizin’ Bakery to cadge a few pastries to go (no pie!) and asked the attendant there where Center Street is. She explained with a puzzled look that she’d lived in Placerville all her life and didn’t know where it was. So we asked her instead where Z-Pie is. She said, “Oh - that’s my favorite restaurant! I can show you exactly where it is!” She walked us out the door and pointed at the parking garage next to City Hall. “It’s just across the street from the garage,” she said. Yet again, the mental map of memorable meals is often more enduring, reliable, and available for recall than any other kind.

Within a couple of minutes we were seated and ordering. We selected two vegetarian pies – the tomatillo stew and the Very Vege (do we pronounce that veggie or vedge-eh?). We toyed with ordering the fresh gazpacho with our lunch, but opted for caution because we didn’t want to over-fill. The pies were served hot, with flaky but substantial tops and bottoms, and came in cute little pie-sized bowls. This is a place after Pie Spy’s own heart, we thought as we dug in.






The Very Vege had a little bit of everything – zucchini, spinach, bean, potato, onion, pepper, hmm, many things all melded together in a red-brown gravy that provided just enough moisture and lushness. The first bite brought us a little too close to the taste of canned vegetable soup – highly salted, a pinch too much oregano for our taste. But did we eat the whole thing and smile about it? Of course we did.

The tomatillo stew pie was delicious with its black beans, cumin, hominy, poblano, green chilis, and jalapeno peppers. Most of these ingredients melded into the background and were not identifiable. The combination was magical and satisfying, though. And not just because we were very hungry. It was shocking, really, how quickly these charming pies disappeared.

Pie Spy had every intention of sampling the dessert pies (grilled apple or blackberry?) but used up all our capacity on lunch. So we will have to save desserts for our return visit (all desserts can be served with a heap of vanilla bean ice cream if you just can’t stop yourself).

Pie Spy loves Z-Pie and wants everyone to know about it. Satisfying, made with healthful ingredients, a place to enjoy the fare, attentive servers, and plenty of choices makes it a big win. It is worth a visit on your way to or from Apple Hill (where, depending on the day, you can find even more pies of every size and flavor). Or, if you love it even more than we do, ask them about opening a franchise down here in Sacramento so that we can visit you often. And don’t forget to tell them that Pie Spy sent you!

Pie of the Week - There's an Ap for That

Inspired by Mom's Apple Pie in Sebastopol, we decided to buy a few pounds of 'cots at the farmer's market to make a pie. Dear old Betty Crocker (as opposed to Betty Carr, a.k.a. Mom)...she told us that we would need five cups of apricot halves for a 9-inch pie. But we didn't have quite that many, so we downsized the recipe and put it in a smaller, 8-inch pan.



Like many of the recipes we've explored through this blog, this one was an experiment. The first surprise was that the apricots, although mostly very firm and a bit on the dry side, released a bunch of juice once mixed with sugar and flour. Although we cleaved to Betty's advice about the amount of sugar in the filling (almost three quarters of a cup!), we found that the filling is still a little on the tart side. We added some dehydrated ginger chips, crushed up - about 2 teaspoons - to the filling, but found that the flavor was not strong enough.


Because it was shaping up to be a gorgeous hot summer Sacramento day, we wanted to make pie very early. The great thing about apricots is that you don't have to peel them - that would have really slowed us down. Prep time was relatively quick. It was just a matter of getting the dough together (reducing Betty Crocker's recipe for a standard double-crust 9-incher, using 1.5 c of flour and 0.5 c of shortening) and rummaging around for that 8-inch pan, somewhere in the black heart of a mighty disheveled kitchen cabinet...must speak to POPS about his curation of the collection.


The wisdom on Mom's Apple Pie website holds that you should not be alarmed or dismayed on discovering that your pie "runs over" while baking or is a little gooshy inside. These things, Mom says, are normal. Good to know, because this one, while pretty much a textbook pie on the outside, DID run over (sorry about the burning smell, honey!), and was pretty juicy in the middle. We liked that the fruit cooked down to a soft, almost jamlike texture, but we weren't expecting there to be juice. So this would not have garnered a ribbon at the county fair - it turned the bottom crust all mushy. Next time, we must use more starch to absorb the moisture a little more effectively - two generous tablespoons of flour called out in the recipe was not enough. We were very pleased with the bright orange color of the fruit, very summery and enticing. The flavor was almost like peach, which made Sac Pie yearn for full-on peach season, but a little brighter and zippier. Would fresh grated ginger be a good enhancement the next time we bake this?


Even with all that in mind, apricot pie is not something to be scared of. One wonders why we don't see it more commonly here in Sacramento bakeries. Indeed, one wonders why we don't see bakeries more commonly here in Sacramento...We have received encouragement ourselves to be the next big bakery thing in this town, and the former Phillips building is still available, so....




As a candidate for breakfast, we can recommend the Betty Crocker apricot pie, modified as above, for your summer menu. We don't know if it's nutritious or not - surely there are some good antioxidants or carotenes in apricots, right? But then there's vitamins for that. Soon it will be too hot to bake, and the apricots will be all gone, so try this, improve it, and enjoy it! And let us know how it goes!

Pie Spy - Mom's Apple Pie, Sebastopol

DROP EVERYTHING AND GO TO MOM'S APPLE PIE, 4550 N. Gravenstein Hwy, Sebastopol

We once heard a comedian say that you should never eat at a place called Mom’s. Advice we had heeded throughout life, until June 5, 2010.

Pie Spy was out and about in the countryside of Sonoma County. Truthfully, we were looking for wine to taste. But we had dallied so long in Petaluma and Sebastopol that, by the time we made it out to Graton, the wineries were closing for the day. Disappointed, we turned back toward town. We knew that the birthday barbecue we were headed for would console us, and soon we would forget all about our disappointment.

And then, suddenly, there was Mom’s Apple Pie – open until 6:00 p.m. (momsapplepieusa.com). We felt better already. The first step through the front door let us know that everything was going to be okay: there were upwards of 20 full-size pies in the case, and a number of 7-inchers as well. There was a list of pie offerings posted overhead – a long list! There were cream pies galore in yet another case to our right. It's a charming place to sit and enjoy your meal.

Blackberry, cherry, apricot, strawberry-rhubarb, wild blueberry, apple, no-sugar fruit pies…by the slice, or by the whole thing. Made with no trans fats! Mom’s also serves sandwiches, soup, and salad in case you need something to eat while you’re making up your mind about the pie. It was an enticing display of Mom’s baking prowess and the orchard abundance of Sonoma County. And Mom, herself, Mrs. Betty Carr, was actually in the house while we were there, although not out front. She’s been selling her pies here since 1983. The web site will tell you more about what Mom's is all about - it's also very charming.

We spied a blackberry turnover in the case, and tested that first. Delightful pastry, poofed up prettily. We wished there had been a little more fruit filling in ours, but what there was of it, we really liked. It disappeared with breathtaking speed.

We couldn’t decide on just one pie, so we opted for two 7-inch pie-ettes. One of these easily would serve three normal people, or two pie freaks. They were beautiful in their simplicity. Here and there, a little bit of fruit filling had oozed out during baking. Of all the pies we’ve tasted on our safaris so far, Mom’s have been the best. The strawberry-rhubarb and the cherry ($6.95) were both, literally, like Mom used to make. Or does make. The crust was just perfect – we don’t know what else to call it. Beautifully flaky but firm, not sweet or salty or crumbly, and not the least bit shiny with butter. The fruits were also done just right, with bright flavors, soft textures, and colors that let you know it's all natural. The homemade quality of these pies made the heart sing. But it was not nostalgia that carried us away at Mom’s. The freshness of the ingredients and the care that goes into making the pies comes through in every bite.

The best part of having your pie here is that you can sit outdoors under an arbor that looks out onto the apple orchard.

If we had found a place like this here in Sacramento, Sac Pie would have had no reason to exist. Mom's Apple Pie has the best pie, at the best value, you are likely to find within 200 miles of this town. Go out and see for yourself!

Pie Spy in LA County

Spoiler alert! Serious foodporn follows.

Although no one responded to my blog request for suggested venues for our May Pie Safari, we were met with a wealth of choices, mystery spots, and Plan B-level selections when we arrived in LA County.

In addition to all the places we visited that did NOT have pie, Pie Spy and POPS managed to hit and sample many fine pie establishments in LA, Pasadena, Eagle Rock, and Altadena. The obvious choices were places that had the word PIE in their names, but we dug a little deeper for some true gems. No, gentle reader, we did not flinch from overeating in the service of research! This area is rich with great cuisine of all sorts, and every dining experience we had there was very, very good. A little bit of sticker shock in Pasadena itself - we agreed that we could have gone to France with just what we spent on food there - but otherwise, it was a delight to wander and find something really wonderful around every corner. The down side of that is, of course, that there are only so many spots you can visit in a short vacation. We will be saving many, many of them on our Next Time List.

That includes Larkin's, in Eagle Rock at 1496 Colorado Boulevard (larkinsjoint.com). Terrific, spiced-up southern cooking and BBQ, with one of the most interesting salad ideas we've seen in quite a long time - mixed greens with okra croquettes! We would have loved some of Larkin's mom's own sweet potato pie after dinner, but we were just too, too full after the salad, some barbecued portobello mushrooms, and two sides. In fact, we didn't even feel hungry the next day.

Next Time List also includes Auntie Em's - 4616 Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock (auntieemskitchen.com). Somebody beat us to the cherry-berry pie while we were ordering lunch, and they bought the whole thing. Even more of a pie nut than we are, apparently. Chef Teri Wahl does savory pot pies from time to time, as well as desserts.

So let's get rolling on the inventory.

Pie N Burger - 913 E. California, Pasadena (pienburger.com). The place looks like it's been there forever - since 1963, in fact. The menu is on the wall at the front and back of the diner. Lunch was a big salad and a garden burger, but that was only to buy us some time in making our selection for a pie slice. There were a couple of dozen pie choices, and many of them were fresh fruit. We settled on boysenberry. Win! Look how gorgeous this is. The flavor of boysenberry (a fruit that was perfected and made popular down in Orange County, at Knott's Berry Farm, not the amusement park) was clean and unmuddled by excessive refined sugar. Really, really great. Definitely $4.50 worth of fun. And we loved the clock!

Gourmet Cobbler Factory, 33 N Catalina Ave., Pasadena (thegourmetcobblerfactory.com) - While Pie Spy was busy being entertained in a stuffy conference room, POPS was out and about scouting for goodies. POPS has a nose for bakeries, which he follows faithfully, and it never fails. He snagged us a golden baby sweet potato pie from the cobbler joint. Try as we might, we could not damp down the almost radioactive orange color of this tiny pie in the photo. By the way, we appreciate that the POPS has the will power to delay gratification and share these yummies with yours truly, instead of snarfing them up when we are not looking. Creamy, spicy, definitely rich and flavorful, but not overtly sweet - we spooned up the sweet potato pie-ette as breakfast and were very happy. Props to the Cobbler Factory for selling fruit cobblers in foil tins from the personal to vat-sized.

POPS happened across a few Armenian bakeries with very reasonably priced treats, some of which were new discoveries. Why don't we have any talented Armenian bakers here in SacTown? Here are the highlights:

Old Sasoon Bakery - 1132 N. Allen Ave, Pasadena. Our favorite was their swiss chard turnover (panjar) and tiny spinach pie (beorag). Neither of these was anything like a traditional Greek-style spanakopita, or any other spinach pie we've tried. The swiss chard hand pie was made of a sturdy dough and a mysterious combination of seasonings (including tahini and onion) that imparted a reddish color and spicy kick to the filling. This is something we want more of - it makes an excellent lunch. No messy flakes or greasy fingers, either. Old Sasoon has a website, but it doesn't seem to be working.

Two other Armenian bakeries, close by:

Panos - 1649 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena (panosbakery.com). No pie- all cookies, baklava, and other Mediterranean-inflected sweets. Which we sampled; many.

Vrej - 1074 N. Allen, Pasadena (vrejpastry.net) - All cookies, baklava, and gorgeous, lovely cakes. Half a pound of cookies was about three dollars.

(sigh)...Back to pie.

Dutch Oven Bakery - 2281 Lake Ave., Altadena. Sunday we found fresh apple turnovers at this very unassuming little bakery. This is not the kind of bakery that has a web site. No puff pastry and Denny's style filling here - just a simple, easy-to-handle firm dough and fresh apples with cinnamon. This little gem also sold peach cobbler in vats, as at the Cobbler Factory. One of their menu items is an old-school sweet bean pie, but none were available. It was Sunday, after all, on a holiday weekend. Put that on the Next Time List. Prices were very reasonable here, too.

EuroPane - 345 E Colorado, Pasadena. EuroPane has a newer location at 950 E. Colorado, where we had terrific blueberry brioche and apple strudel on our first day. We loved the large, rough-hewn wooden table made out of a single slab. The interior is quite beautiful and a great place to sip your coffee in peace. At the original location, which is smaller and more lively, we sampled the apple pie-ette with lattice crust. For breakfast, oh yeah! And it was completely satisfying in all respects - a very homemade quality, excellent flavors, and extremely fresh. POPS was able to use the Spy Cam to get into the prep area and snap a few shots of the pie master at work. Note that she is multitasking.

If we can digress for just a minute - You must visit Bulgarini Gelato at 749 E. Altadena Drive, Altadena (bulgarinigelato.com). It is in an unassuming strip-mall location that you may have to miss a couple of times before you find it. But it is definitely worth multiple visits. Handmade gelati of various flavors, including unconventional ones like goat's milk straciatella, Florentine salted chocolate, and best of all, plain yogurt gelato with olive oil drizzled on top. This last one was perfectly balanced between sweet and tart, and very rich - almost like eating cream cheese. The half-teaspoon of olive oil was an unexpected complement to the flavor. Our server told us that they serve this gelato often at wine tastings, and we can appreciate how it would be well received as such, but we could eat it every day, whether there is any wine involved or not.

Trails Cafe - 2333 Ferndell Road, Los Feliz (thetrailslosfeliz.com, not much of a website) - Just inside Griffith Park on Ferndell Road in LA is the very popular Trails Cafe. Just a few short years ago, there was nothing here but a Coke machine. We found out about the Trails through LA Weekly, and are glad we did. The cafe serves all kinds of snacks, a few salads, coffee, and more substantial fare in addition to pie. The line was long but the wait was not. We spied the very tall apple pie through the glass (see the photo at the top of today's post) and knew we had to have it. Our server told us there were also some individual cherry crisps on hand. We had to have that too, for back stock. All the baked items are 'from scratch,' a friendly sign informed us.


Our pie was served warm, a slice large enough for a village. It looks wonderful in the photo - that brown, flaky crust, chunky fruit, et cetera, right? The pie had skins-on chunks of Golden Delicious that were just firm enough, with delicate flavor. Leaving the skins on was not a good choice. The pie had a weird, stringy brown goo inside, which tasted cinnamony-sweet but was visually unappealing - it would stretch almost like warm mozzarella. We found the crust hard to pierce with a recyclable plastic fork. Make no mistake, though - we ate the whole thing! At $4.50 a slice, we felt we could not let any go to waste.

The cherry crisp was in the mini-pie shell on the upper left of the photo below. We saved it until we came home to Sac, and it traveled very well. The cherries were perfectly sweet/tart and chewy, with no goo. The pie shell was made of the same very firm dough formulation as the apple pie, but it seemed to work a lot better as a bowl for the cherries and oatmeal crisp topping. Worth the five bucks! Good job, Trails. Keep this one on the menu!

House of Pies, 1869 N. Vermont, Los Angeles (houseofpiesrestaurant.com) - No pie safari can be undertaken without at least a look in at the House of Pies, the last holdout of what was once a large chain throughout the LA region. The sign alone lets the imagination run wild. We stopped in about 30 minutes after we ate the apple pie at the Trails. In retrospect, this was probably too soon. At this point, all Pie Spy's pie receptors were redlined, and nothing in the case looked good. On view in the cases were multiple pies of the custard, meringue, and cheesecake varieties. We did not spy any fruit pies, and in truth, didn't want any! But we had to know. And now we do.

While we recognize that we were merely scratching the surface of potential pie opportunities, we think our trip was a total success. Pie Spy was inspired to find some new fillings to experiment with, to get brave with soft berries that are now in season, and to check in again with our local Sacramento scene and see what's on the menu. What have you had your eye on while we were away?