Oct 052022
 

Yo, let’s spend this entire post talking about the decorations and people who came to eat pie and whatever else I decide is worth being chronicled. I’m admittedly still recovering from this day. It was a lot of socializing but it also kind of invigorated me in a way, too, and made me remember how much I love(d) having get togethers. Now I want to have a Christmas gathering at my house! Possibly! I think so!

First of all, I want to say that when we decided to bring back this “event” back in June, my plans were bigly. Oh, I was going to buy all new decorations! I was going to have games for the CHILDREN! I was going to have disposable cameras on all of the tables because that is something people sometimes do at wedding receptions and this is the closes to THAT I’ll ever get!

But then — roadtrips and rollercoasters, man. All summer long. A bitch had no room in her heart or mind to be caring about pie decor. I mean, we still had some stuff left from previous years, but things like the giant sequined PIE PARTY sign and the rustic burlap tablecloths have seen better days, son. Most of our DIY pie pedestals were still intact (though one broke AT THE PIE PARTY before I even had a chance to put it on the table) but man…I just really shit the bed with the aesthetics this time around.

I didn’t even had centerpieces!!!! Usually I have dumb fake flowers in autumnal colors sticking out of rando’ glass bottles from my idiot beverage collection.

One thing I did do that was new was create a stupid photo backdrop. It occurred to me on the way home from Party City that the backdrop I bought was DEFINITELY created with “gender” reveals in mind. But you know what? Fuck that antiquated bullshit! Pies can be pink and blue too. I mean, those are the first colors I think of when I think of…crust.

Corey, bless his heart, arrived early to help me decorate. I feel like every time I have a pie party, someone always asks if they can help and I’m like “Yeah come early and help me set up please” and then they come like 90 minutes into the damn thing. But Corey was reliable! And also, tall. Which is what I needed when it came to hanging shit.

I was SO PISSED when I opened the package for this damn baby shower fringe because it was in NINE PIECES. Corey and I spent approx. 2 minutes trying to figure out how to hang it before giving up and phoning a friend (aka Henry).

I dunno, I think it turned out OK in the end after Henry MacGyver’d it with twine and a SWITCHBLADE.

OK it wasn’t a switchblade, actually. Just a boxcutter I think. But then he left it open on one of the tables and people were starting to arrive so Corey and I were like WE HAVE TO CLOSE THIS BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT (that’s what you get for bringing a pie to a box-knife fight, etc etc etc). Then we were too scared (OK I was too scared and Corey just couldn’t figure out how to close it) so we had to call Henry over again to bail us out.

Did I mention that Margie and her daughter Jordan were the first guest to arrive and got to witness Corey and me, the Super Sibs, practically wrapping ourselves in twine while trying to hang decorations? Hope you enjoyed the show, Margie and Jordan!

I took the above picture with The Good Camera as a test shot and it came out fine but I didn’t feel like fucking around with lighting and settings once people arrived so I ended up just using my phone for the pie party people shots. :/

Test photo with the iPhone. It was fine!

I totally forgot that I made these “Eat Pie” buntings two pie parties ago and they haven’t gotten any easier to read. I made 3 of them for some reason?? OK Erin, calm down.

OK, I failed to get pictures of every single pie partyer in front of the dumb baby shower-y backdrop, but here are the ones I did take, starting with the Sibs: me, Amy, and Corey:

Amy’s husband Dick was also in attendance but he is the one taking this lovely photo!

Random fact of the day: I was adamant on having environmentally-friendly plates and forks, but Henry bought the smallest plates ever and people were legit outraged over this.

“They are literally dessert plates!” Henry cried defensively.

“YEAH BUT THIS IS A FUCKING PIE PARTY, WE NEED LARGE PLATES LIKE FOR A BUFFET!” I screamed back. Luckily, he had also thrown a pack of larger Dixie paper plates in the car in case we ran out of the others, so everyone just went straight for those ones. Whatever.

My work frenemy Glenn (not pictured: his wife and daughter, Amanda and Eve) and Chris, one of my oldest pals! We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Chris is the purveyor of a wonderful local honey company called Sonny Rose Ranch so if you’re in Pgh and need some honey, look for his products around town! He also makes an excellent hot honey, FYI! Anyway, Glenn and Chris know each other because they worked together at Macy’s a long time ago! Glenn tried to tell Chris that I’m the office bully but Chris did not believe him for a SECOND because he knows me to be the SWEETEST GIRL EVER.

Fun Fact of the Day #2: Henry had changed out of his “nice” shirt while he was loading everything into the car and then forgot to change back into it so instead of wearing a non-descript gray shirt to the pie party, he wore a gray shirt with the EVERFRESH JUICE LOGO on it and I was really angry about this even though no one comes to any of my events expecting Henry to be wearing a nice polo shirt and boat shoes.

Nate and Lori!!

More pie decor that I forgot about. Corey was super smitten with this one for some reason.

Fun Fact of the Day #3: The day after the pie party, Margie Jabbered me at work and thanked me, Henry and COREY for hosting such a lovely event. I texted Corey and to tell him he had somehow been promoted in people’s minds to cohost and he admitted that at one point during the day, after he had greeted the umpteenth person and taken their pie for them, he thought to himself, “Wait, what am I doing?” LOL!

Corey is a natural people-person. Hit him up if you want to buy a house and also walk away with like 87 inside jokes in the process!

Eric and Megan! They were on the tail end of action-packed wedding festivities for Megan’s brother, so the fact that they even showed up let alone were able to engage in conversations was amazing. Megan did look like she was falling asleep while holding a pie plate at one point though, don’t blame her!

Gayle and Jeffrey! Gayle brought one of Jeffrey’s photos of Pittsburgh to raffle off. I was the lucky bitch who got to pull the ticket from the can (actually we used the empty box that the Panda snacks came in lol) and it was Lauren! Congrats, Lauren!

Fun Fact #4 of the day: Gayle is actually the reason why the pie party was resurrected. She had texted me last spring and was like PLEASE CONSIDER and I was like OK I AM CONSIDERING and well, THE REST IS HISTORY.

So they say.

God, I hadn’t seen Gayle in quite some time so it was nice to see her familiar, friendly face, now framed by multi-colored fringe!

Henry and Wonka, talking about electrical / computer / welding stuff probably. It looks like there is no one there but before you get all hater hater talk talk, please note that this was in the final hour of the pie party after most of the pie eaters left and the last wave rolled in.

Lucas came with his daughter! Aside from several late shift happy hours back in the day when I actually went out after work, I don’t think I have ever actually seen Lucas at a non-work social event!? He casually mentioned at, well, CASUAL LUNCH the week before that he was coming with his daughter and I almost died. It took a decade, but I think a lot of work friends finally started to understand that the pie party was a real event and not some weird seance in the woods that I was luring people to.

Fun fact #5 (?) of the day: I think I only cut one slice of pie on my own all day and relied heavily on others for the rest. Here is Henry cutting a piece of the beastly big boy pie that came courtesy of Kara’s husband Chris.

Chooch being a test subject for the PIE BACKDROP before the party started. I needed to make sure my dumb phone was going to take ok pictures, etc. I barely saw him all day, as usual. This time, he called his friend Zakk right before the party started, but after we were already at the pavilion, and made him take the T to South Park and then was going to make him walk the 45 minutes to the pavilion. “Or I can send a random person to get you,” I overheard him saying, so I was like OMG just tell your dad to go get him!

Basically, Zakk is to Chooch as Janna is to me.

MARGIE refused to have an OFFISH PIE PARTY PIC taken so the only photographical evidence I have of her and her daughter’s attendance is this one, and also the back of Wendy who was there with her daughter Summer but left before I started forcing people to pose for me.

Fun fact #6 of the day: Wendy actually was supposed to only stay for like 30 minutes because she had to go all  the way back home for Summer’s soccer game later that afternoon and she lives pretty far away and also her husband Shawn is the coach, but she ended up staying for well over an hour and I heard her tell at least 6 people, “I have to leave now” only to find her talking to someone else 15 minutes later.

This is so VERY VERY WENDY, and if you don’t know her, now it’s basically like you do!

Me & Debby I.!

Fun Fact #7 of the day: I babysit those children sometimes. They kept trying to get me to play with them and I was like, “I can’t right now, I’m playing with *my* friends!” HAHAHAHA. I truly don’t think that they realize I’m an adult. I said this to Henry tonight after another babysitting shift and he said, “No one really does.”

Kara and Theo! It’s been so long since I’ve seen either of them that Theo didn’t even remember me :( Kara wasn’t able to make it to the last Pie Party in 2017 and I think it was the first time she ever missed one and it was really sad, so I was stoked that she could make it to this one, but unstoked that I barely had a chance to talk to her. I literally cannot function at social things. Every time I try to flashback and hover on the ceiling of the pavilion to spy on myself, I feel like I was a blubbering mess the whole day. WHAT DID I EVEN SAY TO PEOPLE?? I can’t remember! I just made grunts and whinnies, I think.

The Robbins Gang, plus Haley’s mom, and Blake’s friend Artie and his son Asher.

Fun Fact #8 of the day: Artie was at the very first pie party in 2010! I had no idea who he was, but he arrived early with Blake and proceeded to climb into the rafters of the pavilion roof and throw pennies at me while I was trying to set up. That was legit my first memory of him. Now he’s an adult with a kid and he works with Henry! He’s Henry’s work son!

Also, Haley’s mom is motherfucking goals. LOOK AT HER! Sometimes, I actually mistake her for Haley, she is so ageless.

I love this photo of Corey cutting me a piece of the Earl Grey pie! I wish I had used my “good camera” more that day, ugh. Anyway, this picture is hilarious to me because when Corey was younger (like 13 or 14?), we went to a murder mystery dinner and Henry had to cut his pork chops. Now we’ve come full circle-ish!

YOU GUYS Todd actually showed up! After trolling me year and year after when I invited him to the pie party, this time he finally showed up! I think he genuinely misses his old team! Here I am with my frenemy GLENN, Nate, Lauren, and Todd!

I’m posting two versions because I love that Nate is laughing so hard in this one! Man, we were a great team. SIGH. ALSO I JUST REALIZED THAT NATE IS WEARING CROCS. This was a really huge and important discussion we had a few mths ago in our group chat at work where Nate was like, “I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO BUY CROCS BECAUSE OF THE SUMMER ACTIVITIES I WILL BE DOING WITH MY NIECE AND NEPHEW BUT I’M SCARED” and some of us were like DO NOT but as you can see, he crossed over to the Croc side. It’s fine. Nate is the type of person who can wear Crocs without letting them define him.

I think.

No, he is. It’s cool.

They’re not as cool as my Vans though.

Here’s Nate talking to Margie probably about his Crocs.

We collected more people! In this one, we added Gayle who used to be part of our work group, and Rachel, who used to be the supervisor of our group. Henry was getting tired of taking these pictures, I think. LOL oh well.

OMG OMG OMG along with Todd, the other surprise guest of the day was Aaron and his twins!! Aaron has also trolled me for years: “Oh yeah, SURE I’ll come to the ‘pie party’ tro lolololol.” This time, he said nothing when I sent out the invite on Insta and at work. So I was really surprised when I turned around at one point that day and he was there!

And he admitted the next day that it was actually fun!

Ethan and his girlfriend! I was so happy they came out for this! Ethan is like me in some ways and is very much like “Aw that’s cute that you thought to invite me to this thing that I was most definitely not be attending” but he ended up coming! I think maybe it was also because I was giving Sandy her GOODBYE gift (she left The Law Firm last June, still very sad about this) that day and it involved him.

(I made another one of the annoying Paint Gem pictures, with Ethan’s face as the focal point. I would post it here but it is several layers of inside jokes and I’m actually only on the sidelines of said jokes so you would really probably not give a shit at all, blog reader.)

Nate, Lauren, and Lori!

Jack, Jill, and Regina came later in the day!

Fun fact #9 of the day: Chooch’s interest in driving had a revival on this day for some reason and he started taking the practice permit test on his phone again. Regina and Rachel were SUPER INTO this and shouting out their guesses.

Jess and Wonka! They GOT MARRIED since the last time I saw them! I made some snide comment while Henry was in ear shot about how we are still just UNMARRIED and Jess tried to make me feel better by saying that nothing really changes by getting married, and then asked, “Do you even really want to get married?” and before I had a chance to answer, Wonka said, “Oh yeah. She does.”

EVERYONE KNOWS THIS BUT HENRY, SOMEHOW.

Fun fact of the day #10: I met Wonka in a local Pgh chatroom in 1999 and we are still friends somehow even though he is a Major Smart and I am le dumz0rz.

Sandy and Zoe! Not pictured: Ben and Elena because I think they had already started walking to the car when I screamed SANDY WAIT, lol.

Fun fact of the day #11: The first pie party is actually how Sandy and I went from co-workers to actual friends. She had heard some people talking about going to the pie party and she came to my desk and said, “I want to come to the pie party too” so we became Facebook friends and I sent her the Facebook event and the rest is history! I remember super vividly that she came straight from a flag football game and was still wearing a bandanna in her hair! She hated coming to South Park then, and she still hates it now, as the first thing she said to me that day was, “I hate driving to South Park SO MUCH.”

Fun Fact of the day #12: In Pittsburgh, depending on what side of The River you live on, you hate crossing the river to go anywhere on the other side. Sandy lives in the North Hills and has to come to the DREADED SOUTH HILLS for the pie party every time, so this is a testament of how great the pie party is, that she religiously chooses the anguish of crossing The River to come out for it!

Michele and her baby Mina! Not pictured: Michele’s husband and two other kids, and her visiting sister and her kids. Michele had actually emailed me a few days before the party and said that her sister was visiting from NY and asked if she could bring the whole crew, and I was like YES PLZ because at this time I was sincerely worried that barely anyone was going to show up!

Everyone is always welcome at the pie party!

Amber and Ellie! OMG this was my first time meeting Ellie and her laugh was CONTAGIOUS! I kept hearing it in the background and it was making me so happy!

Sadly, Amber left before Todd got there :(

Me, Janna, and Ivy!

Fun fact of the day #13: While Janna was peeing in the PORTAPOTTY, she had Kara holding Ivy’s leash. I guess Lily, Henry’s granddaughter, was riling Ivy up, because Ivy jumped and she and Lily bumped heads. Lili start crying hysterically, and everyone stopped and stared, and I happened to be standing right in the epicenter of it so I had to pretend like I was also concerned but honestly I had no idea what was going on. Kara kept saying really loud, “WHERE IS YOUR MOM, DOG?” and it was hilarious because the “between the lines” of that was, “THIS IS NOT MY DOG, I WAS JUST ASKED TO HOLD HER, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE.”

It ended up being fine though. Blake and Haley were totally unbothered by it because it was obvious that Ivy didn’t actually bite her – there were no marks on Lily’s face – and that’s when it was determined that they probably just bumped faces. Honestly, the scariest part to me was Kara screaming when it happened, lol!

Also not pictured: two of Janna’s friends who came toward the end of the day! Kelly and Jen, I believe.

Fun Fact of the Day #14: This was the first time ever that Chooch drove, and I thought Margie was kidding when she said, “Why is your kid getting into the driver’s side of your car, Erin?” and I was like, “Oh ho ho he must just be effing around” and then HENRY GOT IN THE PASSENGER SIDE? He just let him drive around the parking lot a little bit, but it was scary, watching my car lurch forward, poor Jinki. :(

Yeah, more on that later, lol.

Overall, it was a really successful pie party! Hopefully we’ll do this again next year so those who couldn’t be there this time can hopefully make it next time – PIE OR DIE, YO!!

Oct 022022
 

After a five year hiatus, I was finally worn enough by some fanatical pie-eaters and agreed to bring back the BELOVED PIE PARTY. The last one we had was in 2017 and was just really disappointing – we had a very shitty turn out and I 100% blame the fact that I left Facebook and you know, out of sight, out of mind. My invitation just didn’t have the reach that it did in years past when I was creating stupid Facebook Events for it.

This time, I posted about it on Instagram, personally texted people who aren’t on Insta, and sent a group email at work. In the beginning, my “interest check” on Insta seemed to really kick up a lot of excitement but I would say only about 1/3 of the people who said they were coming actually showed up. Somehow, even though the weather forecast was showing all day rain and storms, we had a really great turnout! I haven’t done an official headcount yet, but I want to say there were about 50 people overall. Of course, this was over the span of 6 hours. I didn’t have high expectations for this, so I was actually pleasantly pleased at the turnout, and there were some surprise appearances too!

And guess what, you guys? The weather was actually DELIGHTFUL. There was a very small window toward the end of the day where we experienced a downpour, but I swear it only lasted about 5 or 10 minutes. I will divulge all the details in another post, but I wanted to share pictures of some of the pies today, because we all know that’s what the people want.

Some of these photos are courtesy of my brother Corey since I was too distracted to take many of my own. :/

Megan and my sister Amy are definitely tied for most creative (edible) pie. Megan brought a Root Beer Float pie that was soooo refreshing! I have never heard of a root beer float pie before, leave it to Megan to find that recipe!

And Amy made a PAW PAW pie! If you don’t know, paw paws are fruits that are regional to the Ohio area. They have a big festival that I’ve always wanted to go to but never have. Thank god Amy and her husband Dick went or we wouldn’t have been treated this to! I have never actually had an actual paw paw before but I had seen a comparison between them and cherimoya, and if you know me at all, you will know that those bitches are one of my favorite fruits ever even though they look absolutely DISGUSTING. Literally like wet, white flesh with huge black seeds – it just looks like you’re eating the end game of a high school science class dissection. I can’t really explain it any other way but I have to really set aside my texture phobias in order to enjoy a fresh cherimoya. So I can confirm that the paw paw *does* taste similar based on the flavor of this pie! It’s kind of like a mild pineapple / mango flavor, without really giving off tropical vibes. If that makes sense. The texture of the pie was similar to the guts of a pecan pie. I really enjoyed this!

It was extra funny/exciting because a few weeks ago, there was a discussion about weird fruits in the Support Group Chat, which as you might remember, I am not a member of the support team anymore, though they do invite me to their chat every Friday as the “Special Guest” where I proceed to do little else than annoy Glenn. Anyway, this wasn’t a Friday but Amber quickly added me since it was in my wheelhouse. Wendi* had name-dropped paw paws which OF COURSE none of the fruit pleibs knew anything about but I did, since I am the resident weird fruit authority. Anyway, I thought it was crazy that someone actually a brought a paw paw pie!

*(Wendis a newer member of the team and so awesome! I aggressively invited her to the pie party at our recent in-office Casual Lunch. She said she had to visit her grandma that day and I practically lunged across the table and shouted, “BRING YOUR GRANDMA!” Clearly this was not something she wanted to do because neither Wendi nor her grandma showed up on Sunday but to be fair, Casual Lunch was the first time she ever met me IN REAL LIFE so that was probably a lot to digest for the time being. We did chat about the day after the pie party though and she said she definitely wants to come next year now that she knows it’s not a trap, j/k she didn’t say that last part but I’m just guessing that’s what she was thinking.)

I’m not sure who brought the lemon meringue pie but thank you, kind soul, because Chooch obsessed over it for days and insisted that out of all the leftover pies, this was the one that HAD to come home with us. I think he even caught Henry offering it to Janna at the end of the day and quickly swooped in. I was Pie Party 2022 days old when I learned that my son’s favorite pie is lemon meringue. Literally have never witnessed him ordering this at any restaurant ever but maybe it’s something WESLEY’S MOM used to bake for him when he would go to their house to play. UGH WESLEY’S MOM.

I am so pissed about this because I originally had it spelled correctly but then it got smudged and when I re-wrote it, I FUCKING SPELLED IT WRONG. FML.

Anyway, I don’t want to be like, “Hello, it is my pie party and my pie was the winner,” but everyone was like freaking out over this pie so I think it was the winner?? I mean, we don’t judge. It’s not a contest. Also, it wasn’t actually my pie – Henry baked it. HOWEVER, it was my idea AND I had him change the recipe and use a shortbread crust instead of regular crust because you know, tea and BISCUITS or whatever.

I only had a tiny slice and can’t even remember anything about it other than it was good, but all day people were like EARL GREY this and that and I was like OK I guess “Henry’s pie” was a success but I had to keep interjecting myself into convos to alert people to the fact that I found the recipe and the shortbread crust, WHICH REALLY TOOK IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL, was also my creative design.

Corey apparently posted about this on Facebook because my friend Lisa, a seasoned pie party attendee who now lives in Idaho, texted me on Friday and was like WHAT IS THIS I HEAR ABOUT AN EARL GREY PIE?? Her interest was piqued and she decided she wanted to attempt it for the her game night the next day so I had to be a recipe relayer between Henry and her and that was pretty annoying because she would ask me specific questions about the recipe and then Henry would have some answer I didn’t understand and it just went on like that until the last text I got from her said “Hard part is done!” whatever that means. I should probably ask her today how it turned out….

Haley made a shoofly pie (which as you know is a pie type that I am also obsessed with thanks to my strong ties to the Amish world) and broccoli and cheese hand pies so she won the award for “something no one else brought” because those hand pies were a great idea and it’s always so great to have some savory offerings on the table too, like Sandy’s famous corn and tomato pie which she brings every year and I think pie party OGs would revolt if she ever stopped! Kara’s husband also made a savory vegan BBQ seitan mac & cheese casserole pie which was a great addition to the lonely vegan section (it was hers and Henry’s three pies, and then literally not a single one of my vegan friends came, oh well;  thought animal-free options would bring the Vs to the park, but I guess I need to find new ways to lure them).

I *think* that pumpkin pie up there was brought by Haley’s mom; regardless of who carried it in, it was delicious! Aside from Debby’s baby pumpkin streusel bites below, I think that was the only pumpkin pie variety of the whole entire day which is actually crazy to me!

OMG these were both so good. I’m so glad Debby came with this tray of delicate little one-bites. The lemon blueberry ones had a ladylock-like crust!! Also, Corey wrote the tags and it took 4 people to tell him how to spell streusel. The pie party is more than just pie, it’s also about learning.

Henry made three other pies. A vegan banoffee pie which he is STILL angry about because he followed the recipe to a T and it turned out “FINE” but it was not what he was expecting and he keeps threatening to “comment on that video!!” I mean, I agree with him though because the whole point of the video was that it was a 5-ingredient recipe but then in the actual recipe portion, there is a SIXTH INGREDIENT!? I dunno, it was ok but just *really* rich. It was a bit too much. I know the bananas were like part of the name or whatever, but I think I would have liked it better without them.

Anyway, Henry let me decorate this one! I was watching him pipe the whipped cream around the edges and said, “OOH CAN I WRITE SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE” and he got real tense and asked, “Like what?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “ERIN RULZ.” Because obviously I knew the whole time.

Henry sighed and mumbled, “Whatever.”

I think this is a big reason why no one was trying the banoffee pie, because they assumed I might have baked the entire thing, lol.

The sad vegan section. Henry’s third vegan pie back there was a carrot pie and it was so delicious but no one really tried it! I kind of wonder if people were afraid of the vegan tag or if they though it was reserved for the imaginary vegans? In any case, we got to take half of it home with us and I enjoyed it throughout the week. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the scale in my bedroom.

The fourth and only non-vegan Henry made was ALSO MY IDEA. I really wanted to incorporate my beloved G-Dragon into the festivities somehow and OBVIOULSY the best way to accomplish that was a dragonfruit pie. There are actually quite a few recipes out there for this! They all call for regular dragonfruit, but I made Henry use a fire dragonfruit, since they are such a deep, bright shade of fuschia which is also a hair color GD has sported numerous times over the years. I made the GD and peaceminusone flower cut-outs from regular dragonfruit. Anyway, this was another hit! It was demolished halfway through the party so sorry to the people who came for the last half.

I was really nervous though because Henry’s granddaughter Lily kept taking my GD doll and calling him a girl and I was like “OK HE IS A MAN NAMED G-DRAGON CAN I PLEASE HAVE HIM BACK NOW OMG.” It was just a bad scene. Apparently, several people witnessed this and made fun of me about it later but COME ON, MY GD DOLL IS NOT A TOY, THANK YOU.

My work friends were neither surprised nor confused about this pie. They are fully aware of my childish obsessions.

Um I dunno who brought this pie but it was BEAUTIFUL!

I think that about does it for pie pictures, sadly. I can also tell you that two more shoofly pies arrived later, we had three key lime pies in total (!), someone brought an apple sour cream pie that I couldn’t stop eating, and there were pies galore with every type of berry you could imagine. It was such a great spread but HOO BOY am I all pie’d out.

Oh! The winner for most creative pie overall was Nate, who brought this set of Chinese dominoes:

Chooch very quickly swooped in and claimed this.

Oct 232017
 

*I searched the word “seven” in every language looking for one that starts with “p.” Congratulations, now you know how to say “seven” in filipino! My dedication to alliteration is alliterastupid. 

Also, I originally had this titled as the eighth pie party because I can’t count.

Pie People:

  • Scott & Maya
  • Gayle & Jeffrey
  • Chris & Monica
  • Sandy, Ben, Elena, & Zoe
  • Janna
  • Lori
  • Sue
  • BARB
  • Wendy & Summer
  • Andrew & Karen
  • Blake, Haley, & Calvin
  • Haley’s mom
  • Robbie, Nikki, Eli, & Levi
  • Maggie, Ivan, Annabelle, & Lila
  • Amber, Steve, Teddy
  • Valerie & Dustin

This is the first time Kara missed a pie party! But she was running in the Chicago marathon so I guess that’s an acceptable excuse. 

Ok guys. You know the drill by now. We rented a pavilion, people brought pies, people ate pies. After seven years, there’s not much deviation to the formula. This will mostly be photos because I remembered to bring the good camera.

This year was exciting though because we had some new blood! Maya & Scott were here from Nashville (I liked to tell people that the pie party was THE ONLY reason they traveled here, though they did say it was the reason they picked that particular weekend to check out Pittsburgh as potential new digs), Henry’s co-worker Andrew and his wife Karen came, and Valerie brought her husband Dustin who I was excited to finally meet! And this was Lori’s first pie party too, because she couldn’t make it to last year’s pig-out.

I wanted to go bare-bones this year, because I honestly didn’t want to have one at first but then some of my friends talked me into it. Originally it was going to be bomb shelter themed, with just some old newspapers thrown down for tableclothes and some scattered slices of Velveeta for tablescape decor. But in the end even that was too much. We left the table bare-boned, no succulents to meet & greet, no mason jars of crayons to assist with doodling on the tables.

We did decorate the actual pie table though and thankfully Scott and Maya were there to help me because oh what a shocker, Henry ditched me again to go and fetch so forgotten item at the store. He does this every year and now I’m beginning to wonder if it’s intentional?!

I enjoyed this time with Scott and Maya though because Chooch wasn’t there to interrupt constantly – I have things to say too!

Also, Scott is super tall and excelled at hanging things from the rafters.

Obviously, my contribution was something Korean. Choco Pies 4 lyfe. (Surprisingly, every single kid at the pie party took one bite and then slowly handed the rest their moms. I’m offended!

I saved the “BABY” balloons from Blake and Haley’s baby shower because I figured I’d find a use for it again one day. October 6th, 2017 was that day! Mmm. Pie, baby!

(Every time I looked at it, I kept hearing Joey Tribbiani yelling it with zeal.)

Remember when I joked that the theme was “pies that Trump hates?” Maggie won the whole entire event with her ImPEACH 45 pie. Maggie’s Pie for President!

Twins!

I was sad that Amber1 and her twin sister couldn’t make it because I wanted there to be two sets of twins at the pie party just so I could say, “Yeah well MY pie party had TWO sets of twins, how many did YOURS have?” and then that person would be like, “None because wtf is a pie party, that sounds dumb.”

YEAH WELL FUCK YOU IMAGINARY PERSON I’M COMPETING WITH!

I think this was a picture of Henry staring adoringly at all of his grandbabies and kids, all under one pavilion roof covered with the graffiti of high school lovers.

(They must have painted it recently, actually, because there seemed to be less adolescent devotion up above our heads than usual.)

Lori literally made a cherry pi. So good!

There were so many savory pies this year! Sandy made a delicious corn and tomato pie, Andrew made some kind of chicken pot pie thing (the first pot pie ever, if you can believe that!), Blake & Haley went above and beyond with this super-hearty butternut squash, goat cheese, pine nut concoction that ate like an entire Thanksgiving meal in one slice. I can’t even explain how filling that sucker was! Henry conceded to my begging and made a kimchi quiche which even the pickier people enjoyed! It had a quinoa crust, which I thought was interesting.

You guys. I’m so excited to tell you — I’m betrothed to a pie! I never want to be without it.

Chooch had Sandy’s kids and Blake playing some dumb game with rocks. It had something to do with The Kingdom of the Unobtainium Rock? Who cares.

Except those guys cared and played it for like a solid hour until Blake got carried away and tried to hide one of the rocks in the rafters, which caused Sandy’s kids to try to climb to retrieve it, so I had to be a mom for once in my life and yell at Blake to get the goddamn rock for them.

Maya’s first pie party!

Janna brought a Mexican chocolate mousse. We did not build a wall around it though. Mexico is cool.

Anyway, this mousse brought the heat! It was delicious.

Pie party or not, his face always looks like this.

Here’s Monica holding Calvin, freshly pulled from the oven.

This was taken sometime after I told Chris she had a spider in her hair, landing me above Chooch on Monica’s list of least favorite people. I’m a really awesome friend!

My favorite part of the pie party is how welcoming my friends were to Scott and Maya. Here’s hoping they move here and can join us for more pie in the future! My least favorite part of the pie party was when I was on hug-giving auto-pilot and misread Lori’s body language when she was saying goodbye and started to make a hug motion with my arms, then quickly dropped them down to my side when I noticed she was slightly recoiling, and then the next day she texted me to  tell me that this was her favorite part of the whole pie party and that was sad I wasn’t at work because she wanted to tell everyone about it and embarrass me and I died a little but. I have a NO HUMAN CONTACT reputation to uphold, but the stupid pie party always ruins that because there are always people there who demand to be hugged upon departure and I have trained myself to leave my body for a bit in order to get through this.

I am so awkward, it hurts sometimes.

On that note: it’s hard to believe the 7th pie party is in the books! 7 parties-worth of hugs. OMG.

Sep 222017
 

Henry and I were going to take a break this year and hope that the season would slip by quietly without anyone noticing we didn’t have a pie party…

…but then friends started asking me as early as July if we were having one this year. I held firm on my decision but after the eighth person asked, Henry and I had an emergency meeting, which means I paused Running Man and said, “People want a pie party, do you want to have one?”

He was like “whatever you want to do” because duh. So I guess we’re having one!


The one downside to not being on Facebook anymore is that it makes party-planning a bit tricky. What did we do we before Facebook events??

Oh yeah: Evites.

I don’t know hardly anyone’s email address though.

Most of my pals are on Instagram so I hoped that posting this rough Photoshopped invitation would suffice but I’ve still been approaching people directly too because I have no way of knowing if anyone has seen it if they don’t heart it or flat out tell me they’re coming. So I have a feeling this pavilion is going to be super-empty.

If you’ve never been to the pie party before, it goes like this: you either bake or buy a pie, bring it to the designated pavilion, put it down with the other pies, grab a plate and go to pie-town. You don’t need to worry about bringing enough pie to feed everyone, because people come and go all day — we have yet to run out of pie!

It’s literally an all-you-can-eat pie buffet. Bring some beverages and enjoy the (hopefully brisk & sunny) autumn day! I won’t make you play weird social ice-breaker games or anything. I’m too busy keeping tabs on THE PIE.

What else can I tell you…oh! Themes. My friend Maggie just asked me the other day if there will be a theme. I never enforce themes because most people seem to ignore me and go rogue, so it’s a basic creative free-for-all. Although, I did jokingly respond with, “I don’t know….pies that Trump hates?” which got us excitedly throwing options out there like a varying flesh-toned Equality Pie and one that’s rainbow-filled, a glass ceiling creme brulee pie, perhaps a delicious dotard custard? Barb is bringing a Covfefe Pie, so that one’s off-limits.

I mean, I GUESS if you swing the other way, you could bring a pie with a popsicle stick wall around it, or a KFC chicken pot pie with a dusting of Cheetos on top. Can’t promise anyone will eat it though.

I’m pushing Henry to bake some Korean pies. We’ll see what he comes up with. I have an idea for Korean pie-pops but after our tense foray into mini pies at the 2015 pie party, I think Henry may have thrown out the little pie-mold maker thing.

Above, please find a sampling of pies we’ve had in the past. Everything from savory to exotic to mini to tarts. Personally, I loved the cupcake pie that Henry made a few years back but it was critiques harshly by some.

So, if you’re reading this, we’re friends (whether IRL or through The Computer), you live in/near Pittsburgh, and you love pie, please consider coming to this thing! It’s also dog and kid friendly. There’s a playground next to the pavilion and my kid is like KIND OF ok at watching younger kids now, and he also doesn’t run around with sticks anymore so it’ll be safe. 

Probably. 

Here is a very basic and not flashy or pretty map that Henry made to help people get to the pavilion but it probably won’t help because most people get lost no matter what – South Park has that effect on people.