A post in which I attend my first ever pie party

I awoke this morning with pretty much the best of intentions, which I then proceeded to wreck. I fooled around on the computer for a while, rationalizing that I wouldn’t be able to get anything done before I had my hair cut at 10:30 anyway, although I certainly could have. I breakfasted on left-over cream horns from last night, since they are, after all, one of my favorite things in life. Bad idea. Because of the hypo-glycemia, I really need some protein on my stomach in the morning to keep me from having a sugar crash. I know this, and I know better than to do that.

I did get the car loaded with some stuff for Goodwill and got to the shop on time, but I was starting to feel yucky. By the time my haircut was done, I had a headache. Russ gave me some snacks from his treat jar though, and I headed out. I dropped the stuff at Goodwill and went to the grocery store. I picked up pie supplies, lunch, and a bag of beans for soup to take for lunch this week. I felt great in the store, smiling at strangers and generally being obnoxiously pleasant, but by the time I got home, put the groceries away, put a load of laundry in, and ate lunch, I felt like crap again. It was obvious to me that I would have to lie down for a while if I was going to be worth a damn at the party tonight.

I felt much better when I woke up, and started shuffling towards the kitchen to begin the pie-making. Since I had two crusts anyway, I made two an extra quiche to eat on this week. I made Billy mushroom quiche with scallions. They smelled good, and turned out pretty. I was cleaning the kitchen when Nicole called. She was in the midst of the day from hell unique to someone who works in retail during the holidays, plus her fridge had died and she hadn’t been able to make a pie. Donnie had canceled, and she was just generally frazzled. I took two calls from her, settled her a bit, and prepared to be welcoming.

The house needed to be cleaned. I had planned big doings today which sadly had not occurred. But that didn’t stop me from fixing up a bit. I dusted the living room and did some other small cleaning jobs while I waited for her. I had time to make sure that the house was attractively lit and ready to receive a refugee from the unkind world. It's kind of nice to have someone to do for - I don't have that very often. Nicole showed up, pretty much as frazzled as I had expected, but I insisted that she remove her coat, sit down, and relax for just a minute before we left the house. She poured out the trauma of her day and seemed to feel better. We chatted for a bit, and that minute turned into over an hour.

We were late for the party, but that was fine. It was just around the corner from the house anyway. The pie party was in a small pottery gallery in City View, of all places. Now I had been over there before, but had you told me in my 20s that I would be going to a pie party at an art gallery in City View, I would have laughed and laughed. I had been expecting 18 or so Jell-o pies and my homemade quiche, but I had very much under-estimated the competition. These people had brought it, and although my regular quiche is quite good, I immediately dumped my thoughts of winning any kind of prize for my pie.

There were all kinds. Notable was one pie that had a carved vegetable dragon on top with a font of fresh watercress spewing from the open mouth. Not that tasty, but very pretty (there was a category for Most Beautiful Pie). There was a gooey chocolate pie that had to be tasted to be believed – truly a pie-gasm. There was an incredible gratin of sweet and white potatoes in a buttery rosemary crust that just had to be tasted to be believed. Not really a pie, mind you, but who cared? Another interesting idea was a Cherpumple pie. The guy had stacked a cherry, pumpkin, and apple pies on top of each other, kind of covered the whole thing in cake batter, and baked it. I can’t imagine what he cooked it in. It looked like a soufflé, but it was free-standing, and I’ve never seen a spring form pan that high. There was a store-bought crust filled with plastic kazoos, which resulted in an impromtu kazoo accomniment to the music later (there was a WTFWYT category, which is what I assumed the goal was).

The talk was good-natured, but I got the impression this was one of those parties (as are some of those I attend) where everyone kind of knows each other. They all seemed to know more people than I did, and they all seemed a bit more hip and fashionable than me. I knew Nicole. Period. Maybe it was just that most of them were straight, I don’t know, but I seemed to be unable to find my niche. I tried talking to a couple of people, but they basically just drifted away. Adding to the problem was that we had arrived at the party just as our appetites peaked. I had eaten two plates of pie. It was just a bit of this and a bit of that, but all those pies seemed to have taken up some kind of mad and vaguely nauseating square-dance in my stomach. I usually have an iron stomach, but tonight it felt like aluminum foil.

Nicole was tired too. She’d had a very long and trying day. She made her goodbyes and introduced me to the host, who was a very nice man. We adjourned to my place for drinks and chat, but the events of the day had drained both of us, and I needed to lie down and stop moving my gut around. She stayed for a little bit, and then went on home. It was an interesting evening, I did do something new, and I got to spend some time with Nicole. That's a win.