Teeny Lamothe - Teenys Tour of Pie: A Cookbook

Workman Publishing New York

To my mamma, the best pie baker I know

Acknowledgments

When pursuing pie, its essential to find someone who is willing to eat at least one slice of every single pie that is presented to them and then give honest and helpful feedback. It helps to have someone who is willing to discuss soupy fruit filling strategies over the dinner table, and who will draw up very scientific charts in order to avoid devastating crust disasters. Someone who will ignore the fine dusting of flour over everything and instead simply appreciate that theres pie for breakfast every morning. A very special, love-of-your-life someone who talks you through the tragedies and celebrates the victories; a follower of dreams who refuses to let you be anything less. Aaron, thanks for being that someone.

Its also essential to have a loving and supportive family that doesnt think twice about your traveling for a year to figure out how to make pie and champions your every choice. Its especially helpful to have a mom who is both sweet and unflinchingly strong, who will teach you everything she knows about making pie. Special thanks to the whole fam, but most especially Mom, Jay, and Dave. I would never have made it this far without them.

It also helps to have a slew of incredible friends, old and new, who are willing to test recipes, eat endless pie, lend out their kitchens, and edit run-on sentences. Thank you, thank you, thank you: Jenn, Duncan, Magoo, Effie, Carly, Jenny, KaySway, Lord Weisshammer, Krissy, Arnie, Matty, Dan, Sam, Ian, Lyss, Carlnina, Adria, Mallory, Katie, Justin, Pat, Marsha, Mr. Trisher, Whitney, Josh, Julien, Ross, Leah, Erin, Jeremy, Sami, and the Morris family.

It also takes the generosity of strangers who are willing to share their homes, their kitchens, and whatever knowledge, however slight or epic it may be, they possess on the subject of pie. Thank you with a big exclamation point to the Magee family, Dani Cone, Anna Bicknell, High 5 Pie, Felicias Atomic Lounge, Emmys Organics, Petsi Pies, Renee McLeod, Rachel, Allison, Gillian, Sweet Sensations Pastry, Sharin Nathan, PieLab, Shanijah, Kita, Bob Roths New River Groves, the Roth family, Alla, Rose, the Weiner family, Pie Shop, Mims Bledsoe, Belinda, the Golan family, I Heart Pies, and Emily and Nick Cofrancesco.

You also need very important people who can see a beautiful book amid the ramblings of a vagabond baker who mostly just wants to make pie. Thanks to everyone at Workman Publishing, most especially Kylie Foxx McDonald, Becky Terhune, Liz Davis, Beth Levy, Anne Kerman, Selina Meere, Jessica Wiener, and Molly Kay Frandson, for making me part of your cook-bookery family.

Contents

From: TEENY LAMOTHE

Subject: Pie education

Date: August 3, 2011 8:33:40 PM EDT

To: Dani Cone

Dani Cone

Owner/Lady Baker

High 5 Pie

1400 12th Avenue

Seattle, Washington 98122

Hi Dani,

My name is Teeny Lamothe and I want to be a lady pie baker. I want to learn everything there is to know about pie, one pie shop at a time, and I want to start with yours.

For as far back as I can remember, Ive been baking. It started with my mom (quite the lady baker herself), who used to provide me with miniature-size tins of whatever she was making so that I could bake right alongside her. Over the years, not only have my tins gotten bigger, but so has my passion for pie. Its a tricky thing, though, turning a passion into a career, and the path toward reaching the goal of one day owning and operating my own pie shop remains unclear. I have a lot more to learn about the art of baking, as well as the ins and outs of running a business.

This is where you come in. You are a lady pie baker with the wherewithal to own and run your own pie shop, and its you that I want to learn from. I have this irrepressible, old-world, romantic notion in my head that apprenticing is the fullest way to learn a trade: to be in a shop, learning and doing, working under a master/mentor who can provide invaluable real-world know-how.

Im taking my education into my own hands, and embarking on what Im fondly referring to as my Tour of Pie. Id like to spend a year traveling America, hopping from pie shop to pie shop, spending a month or so at each bakery, and soaking up as much experience and advice as possible. Its an ambitious project, and all the details have yet to be worked out, but it seems to be the most hands-on way to educate myself in all things pie. Total pie immersion, if you will.

While all that seems pretty perfect from my perspective, you may ask, Whats in it for me? Well, Im offering a free set of helpful and dedicated hands. Im fast in the kitchen, a quick learner, and I dont need much work space. I will do anything that needs to be done, even the things that nobody else wants to do, and all Im looking for is advice and some awesome lady baker mentoring in return. Im also going to be blogging online about my journey, and will be able to provide as much publicity as I can muster for all the shops along the way.

I would love for High 5 Pie to be one of those pie shops. In looking over your website and reading what I can about you and your shop, I think you would be the perfect fit. Your commitment to fresh produce and homemade pastry is something I truly aspire to emulate. I sincerely hope that this idea is something that interests and inspires you, because the idea of being able to apprentice with you at High 5 Pie is definitely something that inspires me.

Please let me know if youre interested in hearing more, and even if youre not interested, Id love to hear from you all the same. Thank you for inspiring me, and I hope we have the chance to collaborate!

Best,

Teeny Lamothe

Baking has always been part of my life. Its been something that my family has done for generations; from bread to cookies, from cakes to most especially pies, the women in my family have been wonderful bakers. I spent countless hours of my childhood covered in flour, happily looking on while my grandma kneaded bread dough or my mom rolled out the perfect pie crust. I had my own miniature rolling pin that I brandished with glee and tiny pie tins that I got to press all of the leftover scraps of dough into all by myself. Pie was always my familys dessert of choice, which meant it wasnt relegated to one or two random holidays a year. Instead, we had pie all year long made with whatever fruit was currently growing in our garden. My grandma, who Im sure learned from her mother, taught her three girls to make and love pie, and in turn my mom taught me.

Id done a fair amount of baking alongside my mom all through high school, but it sort of fell by the wayside when I went away to college. I went halfway across the country, from my hometown of Littleton, Colorado, to Ithaca, New York, where I was much more interested in pursuing an acting career than baking the perfect pie. And as soon as I graduated I moved, full of high hopes, to Chicago, where baking was more or less forgotten. Occasionally I brought out the rolling pin my mom had gifted me when I moved into my very first grown-up apartment, either to make a pie for the odd picnic or to bake an apology pie. But for the most part baking sat in the very back of my mind, relatively untouched, for a few years.