More proof that Oregon is an awesome place for pie in general: Karen Amarotico lives down in Ashland, Oregon and she is giving away a pie every day for a year to a different person every day. She is on Day 145 today! It may be someone she knows, or just someone she runs into that day, but she’s doing it every day and she writes about the pie and the person she gave it to on her blog, pieadaygiveaway.com What an awesome way to spread the cheer.

The Ashland Daily Tidings had a good article about Karen here:

Clipped from: www.dailytidings.com (share this clip)

No related posts.

Along with sampling the pies that Portland offers, I often like to pair pie with the many fantastic beers that the area has to offer. My brother-in-law picked up this brew from Hillsboro-based Ambacht, a Belgian-inspired brewery.

The brewery is fairly new to the scene, but they are making some tasty brews that are now available at bottle shops and grocery stores in the area.

I really enjoyed this beer, it had a good balance of sweetness and tart and you could definitely get a nice hint of the pie cherry flavor. The beer was infused with fresh, local Montmorency pie cherries.

You can visit the Ambacht brewers in Hillsboro on Thursdays from 4 to 6 p.m. and they are also at the Orenco Station Farmers Market for the season Sundays from 10 to 2 p.m.

Ambacht
1055 NE 25th Ave, Suite N
Hillsboro OR 97124

Related posts:

1. Pie Review: A Splendid Dessert, Vegan Cherry Cherry Pie
2. Pie Review: Lauretta Jean’s, C/O the Sugar Cube – Cherry
3. PDX Pie: Get your Pie On While You Get Your Beer On

Well, my journey of 365 Things to Do While Eating Pie has come to an end. I can safely say that it was a complete waste of time for everyone, and I think I am actually dumber as a result. For those who didn’t follow these updates or who don’t get my sense of humor – it was my way of making fun of all the other “365″ websites and Facebook pages that sprouted up over the last year or so… the premise was “here are 365 ridiculous things you can do while eating pie”.

However, I can’t really say that it was a complete waste of time – I did stumble upon a few gems:

No related posts.

Celebrate by visiting Nimoy, Sunset, Pie – it is exactly what it says it is, and it is brilliant.

Related posts:

1. Happy Blueberry Pie Day!
2. Pie Robots – A Developing Art Theme

I’m not a wrestling fan, but you have to be living under a rock to not know that The Rock is back.

The Rock likes pie… but if you’re familiar with wrestling, you’ll know that he’s of course using pie as a euphemism.

Here’s his awesome song about “pie” – don’t let the kids listen to it.

Related posts:

1. Pie Crimes: Don’t Trust Your Wife? Think Twice When She Randomly Gives You Pie
2. Sir Paul McCartney Does Pie a Huge Disservice
3. Love That Country Pie

If you’re a pie-lover and are looking to add a nice piece of furniture to your kitchen, I suggest that you add a pie safe.

I personally hadn’t heard of the pie safe until I began my pie-blogging odyssey about a year ago. However, the pie safe used to be an extremely important piece of furniture (sort of like a refrigerator to us now).

Here’s some interesting information on the history of the pie safe via LovetoKnow:

The pie cabinet was most likely introduced to the United States by the German people that immigrated to Pennsylvania and became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. Despite the name they were used for more than pies. Everything from bread to cake was kept in a pie cupboard.The pie safe was an important piece of furniture. It was generally a tall and narrow cabinet made of pine, although other woods might be used. It was free standing and could be moved easily if necessary. The pie safe was generally kept as far from the wood stove as possible, to keep the food safe from too much heat. On the farm it might even have been kept on the back porch, next to the dry sink to catch as much cool air as possible.

Generally pie safes were made from local wood. Often pine and other soft woods were used for shelves, drawers, and interior pieces while a nicer, more expensive wood was used for the exterior areas. Pine was especially popular in the southern states.

Inside the cabinet were shelves to hold pies and other foods. There would be screening or punched tin designs in the top, sides, doors, or a combination of these. The screen allowed the baked goods to have ventilation while keeping rodents, flies, and hungry children at bay. The ventilation helped the food to stay cooler and to keep it from molding easily.

Some kitchen safes had tops that opened upward while others had a combination of doors and drawers. There were even pie safes that were a combination safe and jelly cupboard. The pieces would be made to either the whim of the cabinet maker or the specifications of the lady of the house.

You could also treat pie safe buying as an investment – one pie safe is apparently worth $5,000-$7,000, according to my FAVORITE show, Antique Roadshow.

No related posts.

No related posts.

What goes well with a food coma during the holidays? How about a hangover?

Whipped Lightning has gotten some unwanted attention recently due to the whole Four Loko debacle, but I think there is a time and a place for a product such as alcohol infused whipped cream, and that time is during your Christmas dinner and that place is on your Aunt Mildred’s slice of pie.

Whipped Lightning claims its the world’s first alcohol-infused whipped cream, they call it “whipahol”. It comes in 9 flavors, including German Chocolate, Caramel Pecan, Hazelnut Espresso, Amaretto, White Chocolate Raspberry, Spiced Vanilla, Tropical Passion, Coconut and Strawberry Colada.

Alas, for my fellow Oregonians, the product is NOT available in Oregon, Washington, Idaho or California.

Related posts:

1. 10 Places to Order Your Holiday Pies in Portland
2. When Irish Pies Are Smiling
3. eBay Pie Find: Pies in Rotation

Apparently some French chefs don’t see it fit to put pie on their menus (makes sense to me… I wouldn’t really expect pie at a French restaurant, would you?) and apparently some British “funnymen” and a British pie company decided to shoot a pie cannon at France.

“Comedy” team “Armstrong & Miller” had the honor of firing the cannon, which was built as a delightfully prim & proper (see video above) publicity stunt by McDougalls UpperCrust Pies.

Ed Hyslop, managing director of the company, said they were left with little choice but to force their wares on the neighbouring country.

“Even though they are barely 30 miles away, the French are still pie-less and are being robbed of their chance to enjoy a great British pie,” he said.

“We fully embrace Beaujolais Noveau so we thought the French would be more than happy to tantalise their palates with our pies. We are passionate about sharing one of our most loved foods with our French neighbours.”

Source: Kent News

Word has it that American forces will be experimenting with a similar approach, except instead of shooting a capsule with pies in it, they’ll shoot a capsule with the words “democracy” and “capitalism” on a sheet of paper.

Related posts:

1. What Would Charlie Brown Think of British Pie Week?

A surprising thing I’ve learned from running this website is that pie and crime seem to always be getting mixed up with eachother. A man has attacked his girlfriend with a frozen pie, multiple pies have been stolen, and people have gone to jail for throwing pies. Most of this seems to occur in New Zealand… which makes sense, because they really like pie in that hemisphere. Oh, and there’s also a video game about a pie thief.

I just don’t know how pie has gotten so mixed up with all these unruly characters.

Nonetheless, the pie crime persists, here are two more interesting pie-crime articles.

Woman accused of drugging husband’s pie faces more drug charges
The moral of the story here is, if you’re wife is a drug addict and has a problem with you, I would NOT recommend that you eat the chocolate cream pie that she randomly decided to give you. Then again, you’re probably on drugs too, so you’re probably not going to listen to my advice.

Cal Coburn’s Last Meal: Pizza, Apple Pie and Root Beer
This story isn’t a pie-associated crime, but it does bring up an interesting point. It always seemed kind of weird to me that we give people awesome meals before we kill them. I guess it makes it more “humane”. I don’t know, but I do know that pie would definitely be on my list if I had a choice of my last meal.

Image from Jacks of Science

Related posts:

1. Pie in the News: Drop the Pie! Criminal Refuses to Drop Pie