#77: In which she makes four pies for the fair and nearly loses her marbles!

The story of what happened when I entered a pie contest.

Apr 24, 2022

Each year I would think about entering the pie contest at the local county fair. This is the story of what happened in 2009 when I finally did.

FRIDAY: It’s late Friday night and I’m looking at the county fair website. Deadline for pie entry: Monday 3 PM. “OK, this is the year I’ll go for it,” I think. Monday is still two days away and as I want the pies to be as fresh as possible, I decide to wait until Sunday night to make and bake but there’s plenty of prep to do.

SATURDAY: I spend much of the next day gathering ingredients which includes a trip to the farmers market to see what fruit might be ripe and ready. Blueberries and late season rhubarb both look great. I buy enough for a few pies, add them to my basket, and head home.

SUNDAY MORNING: I put on a long sleeve shirt, always important when picking in brambles, and head up to my favorite blackberry spot on the hill where I know there will be plenty of beautiful just ripe berries and the picking will be easy. I’ve been eying them for the last week waiting until they are at their peak to pick. When I get there I can not believe that the patch—my patch— has been hacked back severely. Canes are all over the ground and the berries look horrible and are not useable. After getting over the initial shock, I look again to see if there is anything salvageable. There are enough ripe ones, maybe for one pie, but they are scant and high so the picking is not going to be easy. I reach and pull on the branches, getting a few scratches in the process, and pick a bucketful while thinking…

Who would cut down the blackberry patch?

SUNDAY NIGHT: It is mid-evening when I finally get around to starting the pies. I get my apron, put on some favorite music—James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, CSN&Y, Carol King—and start with dough. After it chills I realize it is going to be one heck of a late night as the clock says 10:30 PM and I am just pulling the first chubby dough discs out of the fridge to roll.

It’s now 11:35 PM, the first two pies—blackberry and blueberry—are in the oven, and it’s time for tea. I think maybe these two pies will be enough and I’ll stop when they finish baking.

MONDAY IN THE WEE HOURS: It’s now 12:49 AM. Black and blue are just out and cooling on the counter. Time for bed. Then I hear the the do-do-do-do-do chorus of Suite Judy Blue Eyes I get my second wind. “Okay,” I think. “Three pies it is!”

chop rhubarb
make filling
roll out bottom dough and place in pan
turn filling into dough
roll out top crust and place over filling
crimp edges
bake

It comes out of the oven and it joins the others on the cooling rack. But something inside me says

"Make one more."
“Nope,” I say. "
“Make one more." The voice is louder this time.
“I’m tired.”
“Make. One. More.”

Who am I to disagree with a yet to be made pie that is speaking to me in the middle of the night.

I take a deep breath, pull from the high shelf the two jars of home-canned Montmorency cherries a friend grew, canned, and gave to me for something special, and call on the spirit of my pie-making grandmother Geeg to stand by me while starting on a fourth and final pie. I muscle through it, and lay down on the couch to rest while it bakes in the oven. That little rest turns into a much needed snooze and I awaken to the smell of sugar burning. I leap up and open the oven. Oh Shit. My pie. My beautiful pie has the dreaded sugar burn on top. I pull it out, set it on the counter, get the paring knife and, like burnt toast, carefully scrape off as much as I can of the burn. It’s now 2:58 AM. I take one last look at the four pies and think I really need to go to bed. It may look better in the morning after some sleep.

MONDAY 9 AM-ish: I head to the kitchen immediately after I get up and look at #4. It’s not quite as bad as I thought. There are a few overly browned spots on the edges and top but a bit more paring knife action ever so carefully scraping them off plus some final sweeps with a pastry brush might just do it. There.

Things always look better in the morning.

MONDAY LATE MORNING: It’s 11 AM and I have loaded all four pies, blackberry, blueberry, rhubarb, and sour cherry, each into a pie basket into the back of the car. I’m ready to go to the fair. I must look quite the sight walking from the parking lot to the Home Arts building carrying four pie baskets, one hung over each arm and one in each hand. The walk isn’t far down the main path and, going slowly and carefully lest I trip and enter fruit crumbles instead of pies, I make it to the entry table.

There are entry papers to fill out for each pie. Lack of sleep has caught up with me and I seem to no longer know how to spell. I complete the papers and hand them to the fair official who assures me that my pies will be well taken care of. After that late night baking episode, leaving them feels a lot like leaving my babies for a first day of school. The judging isn’t until the next morning (Tuesday) but the results won’t be made public until the first day of the fair on Thursday.

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY: Waiting and waiting.

THURSDAY MORNING: I am one of the first to pass through the fairground gates when they open at 11:30 AM. I make a bee line straight to the Home Arts building. All baked goods are together in the back right hand corner of the big room that also features sewing, quilting, jewelry making, canning and more. Not wanting to appear too anxious, I walk slowly around a glass case full of pies.

There’s my blueberry. It has a blue ribbon tucked under the white paper plate with a display slice on top of it. And there are my rhubarb and blackberry. Both have blue ribbons tucked next to them, too. But, I can’t find the sour cherry pie that I stayed up so late to bake when that voice inside me said, “Just one more.” Was the pie so horrible that the judges threw it away?

I see the fair official who checked-in my pies. She asks if she can help me and I tell her I can’t find one of the pies. She says that it has to be there somewhere…maybe around the corner…and gives a big smile. So, back I go to search again…and I find it. That late night sour cherry pie made with those very special Montmorency cherries is sitting on the top shelf in a special case with not only a blue ribbon, but a big green and white one for Best in Show in All Baking, too!

If you don’t give up, things really may look better in the morning.