D'Angelo's Pie

After baking a deep dish blueberry-peach pie on the night of the Fiddlers' Fest, a quick late night reference to pie was made via DJ... a Pie song from D'Angelo, recorded over a decade ago.
The lyrics follow, to a tune which has a typical groove heard on this album Voodoo. 6 people tasted this pie and danced to this particular groove.  An outstanding pie.  An outstanding groove.
Peaches were purpled by the berries, so lovely a color combo.  As for the groove, listen for it or look it up on your favorite internet radio service.  Amazing how that groove had people eating and grooving to the unique rhythm.

"Devil's Pie"

[CHORUS]
F*ck the slice we want the pie
Why ask why till we fry
Watch us all stand in line
For a slice of the devil's pie
Drugs and thugs women wine
Three or four at a time
Watch them stand all in line
For a slice of the devil's pie

Who am I to justify
All the evil in our eye
When I myself feel the high
From all that I despise

Behind the jail or in the grave
I have to lay in this bed I made
If I die before I wake
I Hope the lord don't hesitate
2 get 2 heaven done been through hell
Tell my peeps all is well
All them fools whose soul's 4 sale
Sitting next to the Jezebel

Demons screaming in my ear
All my anger all my fear
If I holler let them hear
In this spinning sphere

Main ingredients 2 this dish
Goes like this
Here's the list
Materialistic, greed and lust, jealousy, envious
Bread and dough, cheddar cheese, flash and stash, cash and cream
Temperatures at a high degree
Wheres niggas come 2 feast
Hell's this all about
Apocalypse ain't no doubt

Everbody's ho'ing out all the loot all the clout
Right or wrong
Do or die
Only the vengeance will pacify
Watch your back
And so will I
In these days and time

Aint no justice
It's Just us
Ashes 2 ashes
Dust 2 dust
Time has come for most of us
2 choose in which God we trust
I know I was born 2 die
Searching 2 find
Piece of mind
With eighty five dumb and blind
There can be no compromise
 ...
*by most groove I mean groove in a cool dark swing, get it?

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!

When a Pie becomes a Tart

 

This pie is more like a danish, or tart.

Compare it to when a pizza goes square. 

I love having guests at my place, people driving in for the weekend even when the Bay Area is freakin' cold and damp. Recently the weather was calling for comfort breakfast-anytime-you-want food again, so I made an Apple Tart with Apricot syrup drizzle.

It was so good I made it again the next day and improvised more.  Better the 2nd time around!

Using a pre-made puff pastry made the day before or from the freezer, fresh peeled organic fruit slices, a vanilla, milk and egg custard to make pastry cream, apricots and lemon juice, this one is pretty artistic too!

Valentine Apple Crisp

a quick step from pie ... this is so good for a cold mid-February night, and if you want to you may call it 'Lovers' Apple Crisp'.

...because it's 2 of everything: 2 personal size pie dishes, 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream on top.

2 cups of quick cooking rolled oats, with butter make the crust.  2 Apples, 2 Eggs, 2 splashes of vanilla, and so on.  Cinnamon, Brown Sugar, Milk, butter.  Drizzle local honey on top, or maple syrup.  Make as sweet or saucy as you like, and then bake for 45 minutes, at 350ºF after adding a little more rolled oats on top.

Move over, Cupcakes...

If you have been following the news lately, you are aware that year of The Pie has arrived.  (If they say it on NPR, it might even be true.) This is the year where Pie is preferred.  And, in celebration, The Pie Blog wants you to know that we are expanding this year to include tarts, personal pies and mini pies (as described in the previous article).  Actually, we never leave a pie behind.  (Except the one that Puppy ate off the countertop, Thanksgiving 2009.)
The Pie Blog (a.k.a. Wannabe Pie Chef) was created in 2007 to celebrate pies, pie thoughts, and stories of pie and photography along the way.  Your non spammy comments are generally welcomed and appreciated, along with any inspiring pies that might meet our criteria for the coming year!

Bring on the 2011 Pies!

 Here it is, 'With an Eye on the Pie', it's 2011 and the First Pies of the Year are up.  These are Elisa's New Year Personal Apple Pies.  Beautiful and delicious on a cold winters' New Year Eve!  She got the light flaky crust perfected and fed over 50 people their own personal delicious mini apple pie at the stroke of midnight. Definitively the best of the spread.  I can say I saw more than one guest have more than one.  The Year of the Cupcake is over - It's Time For Pie!  Thanks to those pie supporters for keeping the Pie Blogger Motivated and cookin'.  Stay tuned for more winter specialties!

Doing the Gingersnap Dance

Another Thanksgiving, the time has come to turn over a new leaf.  Sweet potato pie with a Gingersnap-Pecan crust.  Here's the thing, the crust is made like a giant cookie, ahead of time.  Then after it cools and hardens, the sweet potato pureé with rum goes in, and you have a great, not too sweet pie.   Then, cool it again, and toast it later, you have an AWESOME pie. 

You can find the ingredients and instructions on the Gourmet magazine site.  It needs nutmeg and about 1/4 c more sugar than what they say.  Another tip - reheat after cooling, and it's just so much more delicious because the crust becomes a bit like a ginger rum cake, dependent on how much rum you happen to put in.  (Be warned, don't overdo that, even if you are a really authentic pirate, because if it doesn't cook through, you will have a poor, soupy consistency.  That's bad.)

Uncle Marcus and Uncle Max tried this right away with vanilla ice cream.  A million kids were present and none of them wanted to try any of the pies that came from any of the guests.  They were only interested in ice cream. 

Do all kids hate pie?  One of my nephews insisted, 'yes.'  So I had only Uncle Marcus to judge, because I don't really think Max would be honest but Marcus would...and it was his kindness or his eating two more pieces, that I decided it was awesome.  Not a pie for kids, though.