Ru's Pie Club

…Me!

Yes, it’s true! I won the People’s Choice Award at the Mission Pie 5th Annual Pie Baking Contest! I truly could not have done it without my amazing fan club – those who were at Mission Pie with me yesterday and those who were rooting for my pie from afar.  We were written up on the KQED blog – you will see a picture of me and my prize (a basket of baking goodies) toward the end of the article. And yes, that is my mother in the background with the camera.

The day was exhilarating from beginning to end.  I hit a few bumps in the road while making the pie – but both Cole and Jared helped remind me that baking pies is supposed to be fun. I ended up adding peaches as a top layer to the pie – mostly because I didn’t have enough berries left from our berry-picking adventure a few weeks ago. But I think the peaches were an excellent addition and completed the bite of olallieberry goodness. I also wanted to use a tart crust instead of a traditional pie crust because it’s tastier. The thing about tart crust, though, is that it isn’t as sturdy and fell apart when I tried make a lattice top. So I tried using cookie cutters instead, and I think it worked quite well. In fact, someone at the Contest told me that she thought my pie was beautiful and that she “couldn’t stop looking at it” – whoa.

I’ve added a few photos below, so check them out. And again, thanks to all!

the judges took 1 slice to try...

a table full of pies...you can see my dish in the middle - totally empty

"I can't believe I won!"

A new issue of Delicious!  just went out! Delicious! (a monthly newsletter from Ru’s Pie Club) shares updates about Ru’s Pie Club, pie news, upcoming pie events, pie humor, and more.  If you are not signed up to receive it and would like to, look to the sidebar of this blog – there is a widget that can help you out. Delicious! is mostly tailored to local folks, but feel free to sign up regardless of your zip code!

delicious pie is ever more delicious when made with fresh fruit. direct from the farms. yum. so a few weeks ago, a small group of us traveled 1 1/2 hours south to swanton berry farms to pick olallieberries. as i might of mentioned before, olallieberries are the most perfect pie berry – so tart and yet so sweet. i have gone to phipps ranch to pick berries for many years, but they were all cleaned out by the time we wanted to go. the olallieberry season is a short one, which, with fantastical name like olallieberry, doesn’t help demystify this elusive berry.

according to wikipedia, the olallieberry is a cross between the loganberry and the youngberry. to give this some context, the loganberry is a cross between the blackberry and the raspberry, and the youngberry is a cross between the blackberry and the dewberry (whatever that is). all in all, the olallie is pretty similar to the common blackberry you know and love, but a slightly different shape and kinda tart. if you want to take a look, check out the banner on the top of this blog: a handful of deliciousness. and if you want to try some…

…i have officially entered mission pie’s 5th annual pie baking contest and will be making my traditional olallieberry pie!

mission pie says: “feel free to bring friends and cheerleaders. while we are judging the pies, you can hang out and sample the competition.”

so come join us! sunday, august 28th at mission pie (corner of 25th street and mission) from 2:30-4:30. taste 25 pies for free and cheer me on!

and to get your taste buds riled up, here is some photo-documentation of our trip to swanton:

i loooove olallieberries!

me and monica on the farm

i’ll make a pie just like this one…doesn’t it look good?!

In last month’s Delicious newsletter, I included a link to a fabulous event called Feast of Words. Feast of Words is a night hosted by SOMArts that brings together those that love writing and those that love food. The night looks something like this: a theme is announced in advance. A featured writer reads work that is related to that theme. A featured chef shares a delicious dish that is also related to the theme. The “audience” brings potluck items to supplement the chef’s main course. And then the featured writer takes the whole group through a writing activity. Everyone eats, then everyone writes. Could it get any better?

July’s event was indeed fantastic! The theme was “deconstructed,” so I brought apple pie parts (crusts, apple filling, powdered sugar) and encouraged folks to “construct” their own pie. Here are some pictures of the event:

de or pre-constructed mini-apple pies

"constructed" mini-apple pies!

Also, my mini-pies were mentioned in the SOMArts e-blast! “…Caroline Chen from SFWeekly penned a great article about last week’s Feast of Words: A Literary Potluck, where a full house of potluck contributors shared creative dishes like “deconstructed” apple pie and their on-the-spot writing to win tickets to an August 18th Litquake event featuring Dennis Lehane….”

Ru’s Pie Club is famous! Feast of Words happens the 3rd Tuesday of the month, so check it out sometime soon!