According to some of my friends, this was the BEST PIE PARTY YET, so LOL if you missed it.
Just kidding. That was rude. And my new thing is trying not to be rude.
But it really was a mighty fine display of people and pies and I couldn’t be happier. Let’s peruse some pictures of these particular people and pies, perchance.
PIE PEOPLE:
- Judy
- My mom (!!!) and her friend Debbie
- John, Jen, Gavin and Abby
- Blake & Haley
- Alisa and Cara
- Kara, Harland & Theo
- Lisa, Matt, Matt’s dad Mike, & Gigi
- Erin, Brian & Padraig
- Lauren & Tony (and their dog, Charlie!!)
- Chris & Monica
- BARB
- Rocky, Angela & Ryder
- Brad (and his dog Tucker!)
- Sandy, Ben, Elena & Zoe
- Maggie, Ivan, Lila & Annabelle
- Glenn, Amanda, & Eve
- Chris & Rebecca
- Felicia, her mom Donna (my old Girl Scout leader!!), and Lila
- Amanda, Adam, Alia, and Annika
- Brian, Cathy & Clara
- Debbie S.
- Gayle & Jeffrey
- Rob, Nancy & Nancy’s mom
- Valerie and Brian
- Amber2 & Teddy
I think I got everyone. If I missed you and you’re reading this, obviously it’s because you don’t rate. JUST KIDDING. This is one of the downsides of waiting two weeks to recap the damn thing. But the upside is that I get to write in my blog while watching HOCKEY because HOCKEY SEASON IS IN FULL EFFECT.
OK, back to the pie, though. There were so many delicious pies! It’s a good thing we don’t actually do any judging because there’s no way I could pick a winner.
We made that weird sweet potato thing which Henry fucked up and it came out sooooo dense and not very sweet at all which is a shame because it was beautiful-looking. The second pie he made was Nesselrode, which no one would consider because the name was so horrible but my god, it was fantastic. It was made with like, pecan puree? I can’t remember. But it was sweet and creamy and this is the stuff broads should be wrestling in, not jello.
Sandy brought a tomato & corn pie that was so good, I want to use some cheesy adjective that Dick van Dyke would jovially exclaim if Disney presented a theatrical release of the pie party.
(Sandy, why don’t you slide that recipe into my DMs? Or you can just give it to me at work on Monday like a normal person.)
(And then I’ll give it to Henry because LOL recipes.)
Rob also brought a savory pie! Spinach and cheese. Savory pies are often the unsung heroes of the pie party because you can only eat so much sugar before your body starts to crave a vegetable.
Or salt.
Or cheese.
Speaking of vegetables, though….
John & Jen brought two pies made with vegetables from their kids’ garden: a chocolate ghost pepper pie and a carrot pie, which was sweet not savory. Holy shit, both pies were great but the ghost pepper experience was lit AF. It was just the right amount of heat, right at the end, just when you think you’re home safe…
And Lauren brought a key lime pie with a jalapeno twist, which was also delightfully fiery!
I was so into this year’s accidental spicy theme!
Kara made a pineapple cream pie which she was afraid wasn’t going to be exotic enough—Kara, you’re crazy. That pie should be the official dessert of Hawaii. And she worked so hard mixing up the whipped topping!
(FYI THE PENS JUST SCORED.)
Everyone LOLd when Glenn showed up. I’m friends with his wife Amanda on Instagram so I made sure she had the details because apparently he never tells her about the pie party!? They brought a pumpkin cheesecake thing that all these people kept raving about and I’m sad because I was too busy trying to socialize like an authentic human and by the time I went back to get some, it was all gone. UNLIKE THE NESSELRODE.
Fun fact: Glenn used to work with my high school buddy Chris, who also came out for his first ever pie party! AND Chris is a beekeeper so he brought an amazing apple pie with brie and fresh honey from his bees! I’m posting his own Instagram picture here because I wasn’t able to snap my own photo before it was mauled:
LOOK HOW ADORABLE!! And it tasted fantastic.
So Chris is a beekeeper and so is Lisa’s father-in-law who was also there, and Glenn is a WASHED-UP beekeeper! So many bee experts under one pavilion!
I don’t have a picture of this one, but Maggie brought a mango pie which definitely was a star of the exotic pie theme. I’ve never had a mango pie before and now I want one all the time! I just had a quick side-bar with Henry about this one and he said, “Yeah it was good” but he used a tone that had actual life and emotion to it (the opposite of hope he did earlier today when I asked him if he thought the new Joyce Manor album is great) so that’s how you know it was a good pie and he wasn’t just trying to tell me what I wanted to hear so that he could go back to half-watching the Pens game and pretending he’s an NHL coach.
I think Lisa was revealing some foolproof weight-loss secret. I mean, that’s the only thing that would have me so enrapt. Plus, look at Henry smirking.
Lisa’s amazing lemon blueberry thing (one of my favorite flavor combos!) and her father-in-law’s pecan pie chilling in the background. I was super nervous to meet her FIL Mike, who was visiting from Colorado, because Lisa told me that he’s been reading my blog and I always feel embarrassed when that happens. And I know, “Then Erin, why have you been writing on the Internet since 2001?” I guess the short answer is that I pretend it’s because the only people who read this are the ones I made up in my mind.
You know, “you guys.”
Duh.
It was really cool to meet him, though, even though he made a joke that went right over my dumb blond head, and when I mentioned it to Lisa a week later, she said, “Oh, so THAT’S why he mentioned that he thought you were going to be so smart in real life, but was disappointed to find out you’re kind of dumb.”
UGH, LISA.
And then when I won at Beer Math last week, she was like, “Aw, I’m going to have to tell my father-in-law that you actually are smart sometimes.” THANKS, LISA!
Speaking of Lisa, my favorite part of the pie party migt have been when she told Monica and me that we have really pretty eyes and Monica was like, “AW THANKS’ and I was like, “Really? It took you 20 years to tell me that?”
Alisa might troll Chooch harder than anyone and I love her so much for it. Here she is antagonizing him over a heated game of Pokemon. (Also, Cara brought these really cute apple tarts and I didn’t get one because as usual, I’m snoozin’ and losin’. You can see them on the bottom of the pie tier below!)
Felicia and her mom Donna took this challenge very seriously and brought a fancy tray of mini mouthgasms, a/k/a Canadian Buttertarts.
“Excuse me, did you say Canadian buttertarts?” Monica asked, popping up from under the table, fist to her mouth in an effort to plug her hysteric enthusiasm.
Monica is really into these things, I learned!
And she and Felicia both, in tandem, attempted to show me the proper way to eat it.
“You need to hold it over the wrapper,” Felicia said.
“No really you need to eat that shit over top of something,” Monica tried in vain to warn me.
But I stubbornly chucked the wrapper in the trash and took a big bite.
“You’re gonna get it all over—-oh, OK. There it is,” Monica sighed, as the liquid-y butter innards gushed all the way down my chin, onto my arm, probably into my hair.
“We tried to tell you,” Felicia said as I fled in search of napkins or wet wipes or a babbling brook in which to dunk my whole person.
“You’re an idiot,” Henry said as he cleaned me up.
Henry would probably make a really great preschool teacher.
Or at least, the preschool teacher’s creepy helper.
Monica’s practicing her hitchhiking skills for the next time she feels trapped in public with Chooch and Chris isn’t ready to leave yet. Also, Monica has the best shirts and Chris has the best hair. And so does Lauren, who sits in front of me at work and taunts me with her ability to french braid her own hair!!! Ugh!
By the way, Monica was on pie duty this year and made Butterscotch M&Ms and Cookie Dough pie, which tasted super fattening and delicious and I probably got the name wrong because I had to ask her at least 7 times during the course of the day to remind me again what it was.
So I’m just going to rename it: Lots of Chocolatey Things In a Pie.
Ugh it was fantastical. Like Neil Patrick Harris in a pie.
I’m drinking some kind of pumpkin beer while I write this.
LOL Gayle! She brought these adorbs S’mores tarts and I was so happy to be able to use the pie tier twice at one party! I’m glad I decided to bring it.
Gayle’s tarts were serious business. She even brought a lighter to torch the marshmallows. When Brian reached for one, I was like, “WAIT DON’T EAT IT YET WE HAVE TO GET GAYLE” and there was this big To Do with the lighter and the wind kept blowing it out and finally Brian was like, “OK look, I’m fine with cold marshmallows. NO REALLY GO AWAY.”
I love putting my party guests in uncomfortable situations with people they don’t know!
Chooch is not so low-key obsessed with my friend Rocky because one time I made an offhand remark that some YouTuber Chooch likes reminded me of Rocky. Anyway, Chooch had all these pink balloons that he insisted on blowing up before people arrived (he kept one aside and named him Bobby which was funny and sad at the same time), so naturally at some point, two balloons found their way up Chooch’s shirt and Rocky apparently said “Nice rack” to him, which sent Chooch running over to tell me, “MOMMY ROCKY RECALDINI TOLD ME I HAVE A NICE RACK!”
Like, calm down son. You’re acting like you just received an autographed headshot of some Sky TV personality you were obsessed with in 1991 which totally wasn’t something that I personally sent away for, but just a random example that means nothing.
I invited Barb because I like to hear her run down the list of Erin Rachelle Kelly superlatives that she has scrawled on a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte (holla!)* receipt in her pocket from 2011. I like to believe she adds to it constantly, and that there are like 18 of them stapled together into a little flipbook called Erin is the Best.
*(INSIDE BARB JOKE. Except that it’s not really an inside joke because I’ve shared it here before and really it’s just that she came into the office one day with a PSL fresh from Starbucks and straight up sang, “Pumpkin spice latte, holla!” which was funny because you know, Barb said it. And then she promptly sat down to tweet about it on her phone in the “blinged-out” case.)
Man, I miss Barb.
And I miss Debbie, too! She and Barb took care of me and soothed the hysteria I often felt from being out and about in the real world. Now who do I have? WENDY?! UGH. She makes me do things for myself!
LOL j/k – Gayle is still available to make sure I don’t stick forks in the toaster and accidentally strangle myself with the phone cord.
LOLOLOL Glenn and Henry! Glenn said something to Henry that was disparaging about me, something about being sorry Henry has to deal with me, and Henry was all, “LOL, at least you get paid to deal with her.” Or something terrible like that. WOW why don’t you guys just start a stupid Boys Only club in a treehouse and make dumb patches that look stupid and I don’t want one anyway!
Amanda thanked me for giving Glenn a hard time at work, and I can’t even take all the credit because many other people are mean to Glenn too, but I will say things got a lot easier for him after Natalie and Barb left.
Meanwhile, Brian was saying something about having to chase his little girl all around to make sure she didn’t fall into peril, and Kara said, “Oh just wait. By next year, you can just set her loose on the playground with the other kids and not have to deal with it.”
Brian said he turned around to look at the playground just as Chooch was riding a log.
That’s my kid.
I feel like Blake probably had something to do with the appearance of the log though.
I AIN’T.
I somehow didn’t get any pictures of Kara at the last pie party so I was on the prowl this time. Also, I should consider running a million races like Kara does so that I can eat a ton of pie without feeling like I was cast for the gluttony scene in Se7en.
I wish I had written down all the pies. I know that Erin brought a really unique and wonderful Girl Scout cookie pie (I wonder if my old Girl Scout leader Donna had a piece!?!?). My mom brought a frozen Cold Brew pie, adorned with chocolate espresso beans. I don’t think anyone has ever brought a frozen pie before! NO WAIT I think Amber1 brought a frozen pink lemonade pie one year?! God, so many pies, you guys. Who can keep track!?
Valerie brought a chocolate peanut butter from the Pie Place which I barely even cared about because I was just so excited to see her face! I’ve known her from all the way back in the LiveJournal days and when I met Kara, I learned that they were “real life” friends so we all went to lunch once in 2008, and it was actually my first time going to Zenith, so now I equate Valerie with cool bathrooms and good vegetarian food.
Anyway, I haven’t seen her since then so this was a big deal for me and I nearly pushed people out of the way so I could greet her.
Also, I made her try the Nesselrode pie and she agreed that it was really good. “You should have named it something else, though,” she said. Ugh, I know, but it’s named after some man named Nesselrode for some reason that my eyes skipped over because I get bored easily but I read enough to know that it sounded weird and that probably no one else was going to bring a Nesselrode.
No one else brought a Nesselrode.
Even if it had a better name, it still looked like a unappetizing gray blob so probably no one would eat it unless I was aggressively slipping it into their plate. It’s a good thing I’m not this pie’s PR person.
Rocky and Angela brought a banana cream pie which I always forget how much I love a good banana cream until I’m elbow-deep in one and it’s all over my face and I’m sobbing because why do I have no self-control.
Look at this carnage!!
Also, Sandy: remember when Maggie lost her mind and screamed at Elena for no reason and Elena was completely unfazed but you and I jumped? #scaryMaggie
Brian made fun of Dance Gavin Dance but THAT’S OK. I will probably still invite him to the next pie party. Cathy and Clara are more than welcome, at the very least!
(Also, Cathy makes horror movie cookies, you guys. She is someone I need in my life.)
Judy tried brie for the first time and her taste buds apparently revolted harder than most rational, intelligent, self-respecting women when shown a picture of Donald Trump. Brian and Monica witnessed this with me.
Sorry Judy, I’ll tell Chris V. to bring Kraft Singles next time!
Guys. We love Blake’s girlfriend Haley. Like, a lot. And I think Chooch has met his match with her! She dishes it right back to him and it’s amazing.
Amber2 came right as the party was winding down because she was waiting for Teddy to wake up from his nap, so she was probably thinking, “Wow this is the worst pie party yet!” I’m really glad she made it though and I was so happy to see her that I actually CUT HER A SLICE OF BRAD’S APPLE CRUMBLE PIE ALL ON MY OWN! I mean, it was a struggle and she probably could have done it herself more efficiently while holding her kid and standing on a unicycle, but at least I made an effort OK.
I wish I had had the forethought to force everyone to have their picture taken under the pie portal.
There was the most vivid rainbow that appeared as we (lol “we”) were cleaning up. This picture does no justice whatsoever, but I can honestly say that it’s the brightest rainbow I’ve ever seen, and then Kara pointed out that it was actually so big and bright that it was starting to repeat the last several colors! AND THEN WE NOTICED THAT IT WAS A DOUBLE RAINBOW ON TOP OF THAT. What a great ending to a satisfying day of pies and good people.
HOPE TO SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!
I spent the whole hockey game writing this. You’re welcome. Well, maybe not YOU, but someone is welcome.