The Pie Festival
If you know me at all, you certainly have heard the “Pie Story”, a story that has stretch the last 20 years. If you haven’t heard the story, you should stop reading this now and go check out the pie story blog post.
This story here is the ending of my pie journey. This story is the long-awaited Pie Festival here in Pie Town, New Mexico. Pop. 180
After sharing my pie story so many times, someone eventually told me that I had been taking and taking from the pie community and it was time for me to give back, it was time for me to be a judge.
And hell, me as a pie judge in an international Pie Festival hosted in Pie Town? Well, I loved the sound of that.
At this time, It’s December and the Pie Festival is not till September but better to be early than late so I began reaching out to the folks of Pie Town until I got to the person running the show, Jewel Star.
I quickly told Jewel of my idea to be a judge before she hastily told me that “You don’t get to decide if you’re a judge, we pick our own judges based on who is best for the role. It’s a highly regarded and sought-after position that is not just given out because someone called me”
I was a bit taken back, I was surprised to hear how seriously they took the judging, but this only furthered my excitement in judging.
While tensions were running a bit high with Jewel, the call ended with me suggesting that I’d make my own pie resume and send this to her, my only ask is that she gives it a serious review.
The resume was the easy part. I was convinced I was the best person for the job and I had the experience to back it. I spent the next few hours creating said resume and sending it to Jewel.
Here is the first page of my pie resume:
The next day, I received a call
“Hey Nick, this is Jewel…
Is this resume all true?”
Nervously, I said “Yes Mam”
She said in that case, I think you might be overqualified for the role but if you want the job it’s yours.
“It doesn’t pay, you cover your own travel, and bring a tent because we don’t have any hotels here”
“This is our 40th annual Pie Festival so it’s a rather important one”
While I was exploding with happiness, I wanted to maintain my professionalism, so I went on in a calm voice “Thank you Jewel but can we talk about a couple things about the judging at the festival?”
She curiously asked me to continue.
I told Jewel while I would love to be a part of the competition, I simply detested pumpkin pie. I find it revolting and believe it shouldn’t really be considered a pie as it lacks creativity, enthusiasm, and vibrancy. I went on to tell her that I certainly couldn’t be impartial if I had to evaluate a pumpkin pie.
She quickly cut me off saying that Pumpkin Pie is not even allowed in the Pie Competition.
Further solidifying my belief that this is where I was supposed to be and the fact that pumpkin pie shouldn’t be considered a pie.
Perfect, Jewel. One last thing. I understand there will be other judges out there and they will all weigh in on deciding on the winning pie but I don’t want to be put into a situation where judges are trying to influence each other over which pie they find best. I’m convicted with my feedback on every pie I try, so I simply want to cast my score and move along.
She said, Nick that is exactly how we handle our judging. Judges are not allowed to speak to each other until all scores are documented.
“Perfect, I’ll see you in September Jewel.”
Or so I thought… soon after, COVID hit and the Pie Festival was cancelled for the next 2 years.
3 years later of traveling the States eating pies from Blueberry Pie in Maine, Key lime Pie in the Keys, whatever they call that non-sense in Washington, and finally to the Queen of Pie at Mammies Cupboard in Mississippi I was ready for the Pie Festival.
I got the go ahead that I could be the Judge in the competition, I just had to make sure I was there on time or they would give away my spot.
I flew into Albuquerque on a Friday, still 3 hours away from Pie town but this is the closest airport.
The closest accommodation I could find was an artsy studio Airbnb in Magdalena, still 90 minutes away from Pie Town.
Magdalena was a small town of about 1,000 people. There was one restaurant and one bar. With no overlap, the bar only served Jack’s pizza and the restaurant wouldn’t serve alcohol.
I pulled down a street towards my Airbnb passing what appeared to be a small junkyard with a sign hanging from the barbed wire fence saying beware of dogs with a pit bull and husky lying right under the sign.
I continued onto my Airbnb a little way down the road and having to be at Pie Town early, I called it a night early and went to sleep around 10:00pm.
Only to be awakened at about 5:00am to the sound of growling at the end of my bed.
Governor Davis, my dog, travels with me most everywhere I go and he won’t hop on the bed without permission. Without much thought and half asleep, I smacked the bed and said come on up boy.
Only to hear the growling intensify…
My heart stopped for a moment when I realized where I was and the fact that my dog was not with me on this trip.
I leaped up into my bed out of fear. The growling becomes a mix of snarling and barking.
It’s completely pitch black and I can’t even see my hand in front of my face much less what type of creature is about to pull me through the gates of hell.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand and turned on the flashlight, to see a Pitbull showing her teeth and snarling at me. Giving me a clear message that I’m not welcome here… in my Airbnb…
She’s standing in the doorway next to my bed, with no place for me to go.
Now I’m not trying to get my cheerios tossed by this junk yard looking dog and I’m not really sure what to do.
But I’m certainly not going to get punked by a pup in my Airbnb. She was probably just scared too, looking for a place to snooze.
I get off the bed on the opposite side. Every move I make she growls and barks more. I grab a blanket and make a bed for this dog who is inching closer.
I get back on the bed and point to the bed of blankets and say with a stern voice, “time for bed”. The same I’d say to my dog when it’s time for me to sleep.
She almost immediately falls silent and goes to the makeshift bed to lay down.
I’m not sure who’s dog this is, if anyone’s but as I see the dog snuggling into the pile of blanket I’m less concerned and still very tired.
I laid back down and slept until my alarm went off an hour or so later.
Before getting up I turn on my flash light to see if my new frienemy is still around but it appears she had already left.
The next morning, I shot a message to my Airbnb host about what happened but I never received a response.
I can only imagine; this bully was a stray exploring and got scared when she came across someone.
Regardless, I was onto bigger things – today was PIE FESTIVAL DAY.
After year’s awaiting I finally was going to get to experience the pie festival, not only that but be a judge!
After about 90 minutes of driving I began to see cars lined up along the highway, before seeing the Pietown sign and all the tents for Pie Festival.
I continued on to the fire station where I needed to meet Jewel to check in for the Pie Festival.
Jewel was already out front and greeted me, you could see how happy she was that the pie festival was back in action.
She quickly pointed me inside to a table to check in with David.
Inside the fire station there was about 5 older ladies sitting around waiting to accept pies into the contest. Right next to them was David, an 80-year-old man who was full of energy. He was sitting by himself at a small table.
He shouted at me, said “you don’t have a pie, so you must be here to judge”
“if you want to judge, you gotta tell me a joke, make it a good one “he continued
All the ladies stated to listen in
And without missing a beat,
I said “sure, happy to but real quick I just wanna say how cool it is that y’all have a henweigh right at the edge of town”.
The ladies begin to murmur to each other confused on what a henweigh is before David exclaims
“A henway?! What’s a henway? “
I smiled, looked David straight in the eyes and said about 2 lbs.
The ladies began laughing boisterously and poking fun at David.
David looked back at me, jerked the chair next to him out from under the table and said “You son of a bitch, you sit right here next to me,” And continued that I would fit in just fine.
I, mighty proud of my joke, go and sit next to David.
He leans in as if telling me a secret and says that was a good one before letting off a small chuckle.
I spent the next few hours sitting next to David swapping stories, telling jokes, and talking about music and women while the ladies were accepting pies to enter the competition.
It wasn’t long before we closed of the entrees.
Jewel came in and gathered the other judges who had begun trickling in. We went over the scoring and the categories. Each category having a winner and the highest scored pie overall won the Best Pie award.
There were four categories; Fruit, nut, other, and youth
The scoring was based on a 10-point system on 3 focus areas: Appearance, Crust, and Taste. No half points or partial points to be given so the best score possible would be a 30.
Jewel instructed us to go and score on appearance now before they make a cut.
For the first time, I walk through the tables of pies giving myself a complete look at each pie before scoring each, circling the tables to make sure I could see all sides of the pie. My expectation is these would all be cooked appropriately and we would find the devil in the details.
Are all the weaves of the lattice crust the same thickness? Is the crumb crust evenly applied? Is the filling packed in to give the pie a level of depth to create excitement? Is the crust being used to hide imperfections of the pie? Does a double crust have the appropriate ventilation areas for filling runoff?
We saw a few pies that were more on the fan flare side, for instance a crust that had 4-inch crust hearts layered on top of each other throughout the top of the pie. You don’t need the cutesy stuff if you do your pie right. This is simply noise that needs to be cut through to get to the nitty gritty of what makes a pie excellent.
I was the only judge that had not judged here before, many with several years of judging experience.
One judge brought his own chair, sitting in front of each pie and sharing an intimate moment when viewing each one, spending far longer than any other judge.
When you know what you are looking for, it certainly doesn’t take long to evaluate.
Above everything, I came away from my appearance judging enthralled at the opportunity to try one specific pie, Sunflower honey.
That’s a testament to how great of an appearance this pie had, the one pie I was eager to take a bite of.
After the scores were cast, the ladies went to cut a single slice of pie, just enough for each judge to have a couple bites and the remainder of the pies to be auctioned off afterwards.
The first pie for me to try was a caramel apple, with a crust so poor that I couldn’t even figure out what type of crust they were trying to create.
After the first bite, the consistency tasted like sand in my mouth. Disappointed in this pie and the individual who had the audacity to enter it, I moved on… After some water.
The Oregon Blackberry pie was next. With a simple lattice crust done near perfect, a couple of the squares in the back of pie had overflowed with filling while the rest of the filling sat perfectly underneath the crust. This typically is a result of an oven unevenly cooking the pie and causing the filling to boil over.
This is traditionally one of my favorite type of pies as blackberry is my favorite berry.
I was excited and hopeful. I took a bite and felt a subtle sweetness, with a balance of a nice soft top crust and a under crust that maintained its integrity.
Berries have notoriously different flavors depending on the ripeness. Too ripe and they can lose their flavor, not ripe enough you get a punch of tartness.
Berry pies typically combine berries at all stages of life, creating a difficult consistency within the pie. Often it feels like the tart berries and sweet berries of a constant battle.
This pie however, did not feel like that. It was clearly created with the baker specifically handpicking each berry to maintain a consistent flavor.
This was the caliber of pie I was expecting to see.
I moved forward and tried a variety of pies from strawberry rhubarb, blueberry green chile, toffee pecan, peach, apple cherry, and so on.
There was a wide array of talent here, most were good, some great, and a few stellar ones.
Then, my last pie, the sunflower honey. A unique pie I have not come across before, one I previously mentioned made me excited to indulge in this pie.
This pie’s top crust was a layer of toasted sunflower seeds with a filling consistency that looked similar to that of a molasses pie.
I steady myself, taking in the look one last time before slicing a bite.
I take a bite. The toasted sunflower seeds flavor is powerful, almost overpowering and then after a moment the honey flavor begins rushing through my taste buds creating a perfect harmony with the seeds.
This pie was something special and executed perfectly.
While I won’t mention exact scores, I can say with certainty that I have given this pie the highest score out of the competition.
It came as no surprise after the ladies counted the scores that the sunflower honey pie was named the best pie of the competition.
After the announcement, the other judges dispersed and there was some time before we auctioned off the remainder of these pies.
I went over to David to say my goodbyes
David asked me to get a photo with him before I left.
Right after our photo, David leaned in again and said “Do you want to smoke a joint”
Let me repeat this: this 80-year-old man at the 40th annual Pie Festival in Pietown, New Mexico asked me to go smoke a Ziggy with him. The people you meet are often the best parts of a trip.
I stayed around the pie festival for a while still with my pie judge ribbon, enjoying conversations with everyone about the different pies and my judging experience before eventually stocking up on souvenirs and heading out.
The festival certainly felt like everything I had been waiting for, and it did not disappoint
The 90-minute drive home was 90 minutes of pure reflection.
My pie journey started 20 years ago, when I was just 8 years old and I won an auction winning a mixed berry pie that was sure to lead me to a lot of experiences.
The first time I told a girl I loved her was right after she bought me a mountain berry pie.
My dog and I drove thousands of miles, now seeing 48 states exploring and trying different pies along the way
I have met and made countless friends on this journey
And I have deepened my current friendships to unexpected levels.
And for years, I wondered what the next part of this story was.
But now,
Now,
There is no next part of this story, this is a moment for me to close the book on one hell of a journey.
I’ll still be eating pie first when sitting down for dinner, I’ll still be sharing pie with friends and strangers, but this is a moment to put a bow on a lovely experience and refocus my attention and energy into something new, whatever that may be.
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