The Great Pine Street Pie Debate

The Great Pine Street Clinic Pie Debate happened on a recent Saturday morning, where I, along with a collection of Bay Area acupuncture all-stars, and cancer detecting poodles, were semi-secretly meeting to put teams together for the 1st Annual Chinese Medicine Debate Tournament. 
Our topics will be subjects of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and health care in the United States.  We would learn about debate by doing a mock practice round, which would be about PIE (the actual TCM Tournament will be held at a location TBA to the public on June 11th, 2011...keep in touch for details) What more exciting for the Pie Blog than a Pie Debate to emerge!

The Debate Prompt: That Apple Pie is Superior to Cherry Pie.  Arguments were heard;  A Cherry Team, An Apple Team...What more exciting for the Pie Blog than a Pie Debate to emerge!

My good friend and team captain was asked by the deli check-out person earlier that morning, 'where she was headed out, so early?'
"To a Chinese Medicine Debate Meeting," she replied.
"...Sounds like a Ninja Warrior Fight!," the cashier exclaimed.

Dr. Ashby with Opening Statements Pro-Apple Pie: All-American Ancestory, Economical,  and TASTY with tradition

Pie of Apples, we argued, is the All-American Family Pie in season all year.  It is the Pie's Pie.  It even has medicinal uses, and can be combined with cinnamon and other wonderful spices and aromatics.  It's cheap to make an Apple Pie, and that's a plus in this economic environment!  There's also the lore and story of Johnny Appleseed, walking across America, giving rise to the great diversity of the apple in North America.  The Cherry Pie Team dismissed Johnny Appleseed as a hoax, arguing that their pie was simply the more luxurious, erotic pie.  Cherry Pie was fragrant of spring and love.  Cherry Pie supports Wisconsin.  The elegant Cherry Pie had George Washington somewhere in their history, too (an minor point about chopping down cherry trees...)  Our Apple Team argued back that often there are animal products and gelatin materials made to make the Cherry Pie set correctly, which was not erotic or luxurious.  Apple Pie needs no animal products and can go vegan quite nicely.  Cherry Pies are messy and who wants to pick all those pits anyway?   The Cherry Team bounced back, noting that Apple Pie needs vanilla ice cream to be great and can't stand alone.  Oooh! Pow!
In the end, the Apple Team, with our passion for The Pie and confident debate, won the contest!