Jenell Parsons - You Wanna Piece of Me?: More Than 100 Seriously Tasty Recipes for Sweet and Savory Pies

I could have a whole chapter on dedications. You really cannot start a business alone, and, along the way, the support that I have received from family, friends, and each and every one of you who has bought my pies has been more than I could ever have dreamed of. Trying to keep this short and sweet is a challenge for me. But overall, I dedicate this book to my mom. Almost every day since I started The Pie Hole I have called her, and I have boasted or cried with every windfall and struggle. She has listened patiently as I go on and on, she has lifted me when I thought I couldnt continue, and she has cheered me on when I have succeeded. Thank you, Mom.

Copyright 2020 The Pie Hole Holdings Corp.

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisheror, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agencyis an infringement of the copyright law.

Appetite by Random House and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication is available upon request.

ISBN9780525610830

Ebook ISBN9780525610847

Photography by Janis Nicolay

Book and Cover design by Kelly Hill

Published in Canada by Appetite by Random House, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited.

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

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s soon as I found out I was writing a book, I knew any way you slice it! would be the opening line. When I started this crazy adventureturning my hobby and passion for baking into The Pie Hole businessI dreamed I would write a book. Now its happening, though, its really scary for me to write: this book is a culmination of my passions and my very being, not just my recipes, and thats daunting. And does anyone really care how a girl from a small town moved to the big city and opened a pie shop?

Any Way You Slice It!

I remember so vividly selling my first pie, on May 29, 2011, almost a decade ago. I am a self-taught baker, and Ive always just baked what I like to eat: pies. I knew that I loved my pies, as did my friends and family, but would other people? Friends of mine owned a hip restaurant in East Vancouver, and also held an annual Show & Shine vintage car show. With much encouragement they convinced me to set up a table full of my pies to sell at the show. I decided to channel my inner 50s housewife persona, wearing a pair of heels, a skirt, a pearl necklace, and a perfectly pressed apron. I was feeling terribly shy, and being in costume meant I could play a character and also fit in with the vintage vibe of the show. Soon, two girls approached my table in full pinup girl attirerosy red lips and perfectly coiled hair

my first customers. I proudly walked them through my menu.

It was pretty heavy on booze-laden pies, with offerings like Bourbon Pecan Pie, Apple Jack (apples soaked in Jack Daniels), and rum-spiked Blue Hawaiian Pie, as well as my Maple French T

sweet maple and salty bacon together, so they bought a small Maple French Toast Bacon Pie to share. My very first sale! It was the first

pie they bought that day, but it wasnt the last. I might be making this up, but I bet they had to loosen their corsets as the day went on! And it was the same with other customers, too. Throughout the day, people kept coming back for more and more pie, the remnants of flaky pie crust still on their faces and clothes as they ordered more.

The feeling I felt that daythat other people loved my pie toowas validating and exhilarating! And I still feel it today.

So The Pie Hole started that afternoon at the Show & Shine car show. After that, I not only wanted, but needed to keep baking pies. I started borrowing friends restaurants after hours, hauling ingredients into their kitchens, baking all night, then cleaning everything up and making sure I was out of there before they opened. Exhausted, I would set off with a car full of fresh-baked pies to farmers markets the next morning. With my homemade chalk signs, antique apple crates, and checkered tablecloths, I set up my booth and, more often than not, would sell out of pie before the market ended. Soon I moved to work out of a friends motorcycle warehouse, where a small, unused kitchen was offered to me in the back. In the early days my sister would come to help me. One night we peeled literally hundreds of pounds of fresh Okanagan peaches, on makeshift tables precariously squeezed in around vintage Nortons and Triumphs. Im pretty sure she never peeled another peach after that!

Eventually, I moved into a commissary kitchen, sharing the space with a bunch of other entrepreneurs, many of whom owned food trucksand that commissary community was invaluable. Now that I was paying rent, the hustle was realand pies needed to move out the door!

At first it was just an industrial door, with no sign. There was nothing indicating that I was in there, nothing to tell you about the pies that were being made inside. So the fact that people sought me out to buy my pies still blows my mind! (Almost as much as the fact I was able to produce hundreds of pies a week in just 64 square feet!) For a while I was content working in this space, growing my pie business at a speed I was comfortable with, coercing friends to come help me by offering wine and fun music. But bribes only work for a little while, and to preserve my friendships, I decided it was time to get serious. I stopped counting how many pies I needed to sell to

make rent, and instead started hiring people to work with me to meet the demand. At one point in the tiny commissary space, I had four employees, plus me, all huddled around a five-foot stainless-steel table baking pies as fast as we could for our customers, restaurants, grocers, and butcher shops.