Pie, Pie, Me-Ohhh-My...

There's a new pie shop in town.  Truly, how often do you get to say that?  Only in Seattle is there a specialty pie shop next door to the speciality ice cream shop Bluebird, both of which are down the street from the speciality cookbook shop, The Book Larder.

In celebration of Ben teaching his final day of classes at the community college this quarter, we ate pie!  I'd stopped into Pie a couple weeks back and had a discussion with their head baker about how they prepare their gluten-free pie and he told me that they make their GF pie crust once a week or less and before doing so, they clean all the equipment.  I felt safe eating there, but as always, it's up to you to make sure you won't get sick.  I never take somebody else's word that a restaurant is safe, I always ask lots of questions.

Just to illustrate my point: I was at a business lunch the other day at The Cheesecake Factory, and boy am I glad I didn't order the Mexican chicken salad, because somehow they'd managed to put gluten into the chicken, black beans, or salad dressing.  Yet to find out, I had to badger the waiter, then the chef.  I'm not sure how they're processing their foods, but it made me want to save my lunch for another venue. (Seriously--black beans!?!)

But back to pie...

At Pie, they have a GF sweet pie everyday, but if you want a GF savory pie you need to order half an hour ahead of time, and they'll bake it on the spot.  They change up their flavors daily.  After checking their menu, I had my heart set on an English meat pie, or possibly roasted turkey with sweet potato.  Unfortunately, not all their fillings are GF, and my choices were vegetable curry, broccoli cheddar and egg and potato, none of which sounded as appetizing.  Far be it from me to look a gift pie in the mouth, but wouldn't it be great if they made ALL their fillings with rice flour?  That would make dining out for us poor GF people an absolute delight.  I can't remember the last time I had too many choices instead of too few.

I chose the vegetable curry pie, and they were pulling it out of the oven just as Ben and I walked in the door.  The pie shop smells amazing!  I mean, all they do is bake pie.  Chocolate pie.  Apple pie.  Meatloaf pie.  Even mac n' cheese pie!  Ben ordered the non-GF English meat pie and an apple-blackberry pie.  Sadly, they were sold out of their sweet GF pie du jour, so I didn't try dessert.

Ben reported his pie was delicious: flaky crusts, well-spiced meat, and his apple-blackberry pie wasn't "too damn" sweet.  My curry vegetable pie had a nice blend of flavors, but it was too salty for my tastes and I couldn't finish it.  The crust was lovely; not exactly flaky, because you can't get the same layers with GF pie, but crumbly in just the right way, and it melted in my mouth.

Is Pie a novelty?  Yes.  Will it stick around?  I sure hope so!  My first dining experience at Pie wasn't perfect, but it wasn't horrid either, and I think they'll get better.  And you never know, maybe I can talk them into gluten-free banana cream pie.  A girl can dream, right?

GF Vegetable Curry Pie