The year of the pie

I'm not really sure what that title means. It just felt right. Well, it is fall again. More specifically, October. More specific than that: The time of the chili cookoff/pie contest arrived once again. If you'll recall last year's submissions:


click me. now. do it.


After returning home sans apron, Sean and I were resolute in winning the pie contest 2008 except I expressed some disconcertion (<--made up word alert) because we felt like we couldn't make a better pie than those 2. They were both exquisite in totally different ways.

Well, this year the day was approaching and Sean and I found ourselves looking forward to it, of course, and even hoping to win, but we didn't allow our hopes to go through the roof as we did last year. And, since we felt like we had hit our peak in pie-making, and since we hadn't tasted the pie since last year, we made the blueberry lemon souffle pie again.

We made two of them, one for the young ladies to sell for girls camp. Here is one of the pies. It is nice enough looking. Nothing too fancy.



Before I tell you about the other pie, aka Pie o' Perfection, let's take a quick break to talk about our costumes. Can you guess who I was?



If you need some help figuring it out, here's an action shot:


Clearly that is a blaster. Clearly my lips are hyper-glossy. Clearly i have braids in my hair so clearly I am Princess Leia in her woodsy garb on the forest moon of Endor! The somewhat ambiguous yet unsung costume of the Leia costumes. It was so great. I loved it. My hair was a trick. I didn't know what to do so I braided my hair in 6 braids and just wrapped them all over my head. Hey, I don't have 6-foot long hair. I did the best I could.

We wanted to have a Return of the Jedi theme so here is Sean in his costume.



Notice his hand is in its postmortem state.

Here we are as a team.



Now, you might think it weird that we as a couple would go as a brother/sister team. And it is, kind of.

Ok, back to the pies.

Our breathtakingly beautiful pie. For this pie we combined blueberries with raspberries to layer on the crust under the lemon souffle part. And Sean had the BRILLIANT idea to bake raspberries along the edge of the pie. Look at it. Just look at it. I dare you to say it isn't the prettiest thing you've ever seen. C'mon, double dog dare you. (lame)



I know. Stunning. This is a winner, right? There's no way we could not have won, right? You are right, you are absolutely right about that. Except for one tiny mishap. I set the pie on the counter and reached up on the shelf for a container for it. As I reached, I knocked down a can of apple juice, and, well...





wait for it....











Kersplat!

A moment of silence please.


.............................................................................


First, a collective gasp. I look up horrified at Sean whose jaw is resting on the counter and his face is frozen in silent disbelief. I immediately burst into laughter because it was either that or burst into sobs. Ha ha. Oh man. It happened so fast, and the pie, the pie went EVERYWHERE. I immediately took a picture and then tasted the pie and, sure enough: amazing. Meanwhile Sean is still standing, frozen in place. I didn't think he was going to forgive me ever. I apologized over and over and over and he said he wasn't mad at me, he just didn't know how to feel. He said he felt like his dog died or something. It was so surreal. And he spent the whole trip to the church a little shell-shocked, a little forlorn.




And that's the story of how The Most Perfect Pie in the World lived and died in an hour. So we took the less-pretty one, totally snubbed the girls camp fund and entered it in the contest. It didn't win but that's ok. A little while later, as we were helping set up for the activity, (the bluegrasstastic band played again), I said to Sean in a quiet moment of reflection: "You know, I think the pie was just too pretty. Too pretty to exist for very long. Like a sunset or a rose or a pretty bug that dies the day after it hatches." It was just too beautiful for this world.

Besides, we were planning on buying it from the pie sale anyway and bringing it right back home. (why bring it in the first place, you ask, and not just donate the money? Because how could we create such a gorgeous pie and not show it off.)

Next year..next year. I won't give up.

To close, here are some pictures of the pie entries.