I saw the Future this past Saturday night and it came in a pie crust; actually, it came in 31 different pie crusts. Now, I am not saying or even implying that the Grilled Cheese Invitational has jumped the shark, but when the “important” local media covers it, well, the end is nigh.
So, long live the pie—both sweet and savory. Through one of those friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend last minute kind of invitations I wound up at the 4th annual Baked Pie-Off this past weekend. And although there were no green pies in the competition, the invite mentioned the contact buzz and that was 100% true and stuff.
There were more than a 100 people in the Echo Park house convened around a table with the aforementioned 31 different pies. And all the participants were very serious when it came to their baking. I wasn’t actually taking notes although I told people that I was covering the event so you’re not getting a play-by-play account or even a listing of many of the pies. Them’s the breaks.
I do know there was some German pie that required fruit to be soaked in rum for a number of months; I didn’t get any of the pie, but the baker (who had won the 1st Baked Pie-Off) passed me his flask for a sip of the leftover rum that had had the fruit in it. Amazingly smooth and delicious; you missed something there. There was a Moon Pie and a lot that had bacon and peanut butter and the kicker, which won the Sweet category, was a melon and something else ice-box pie.
Don’t tell ‘em I told you, but if you see me at next year’s you owe me a drink.
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Last night I delivered the final edited copy of my short story collection, “A Rose by Any Other Name: An Alphabet of Tales About a Man & a Woman” to a friend at Amazon. With Alan’s help, this book will very soon be available through Amazon and on Kindle--- finally!
The book was written about five years ago and has been completely done and ready for the last three years although there were “valid” excuses for keeping it out of print for some of that time. Alas, I can’t find any more excuses, so the book will be available for purchase soon- maybe even for Xmas.
I will keep you posted.