Today would be the day my anxiety would ratchet up and I’d be making pie dough and getting ready for the first day of a whole month of making a pie a day. All of you would be checking my feed to see what kind of pie will it be today, and wondering should I bid, or should I wait for what tomorrow brings? You’d be checking to see if your favorite, maybe chicken pot pie (Arthur Salm) or maybe mixed berry (Barbara Crena) was the pie of the day. You’d be throwing out numbers, hoping to be the top bidder, and often carrying home a hot pie that night to share with your family (or eating it all yourself, please tell me some of you do this because I’ve been known to do it.). And, of course, you were all doing it in the name of doing a good deed to help the kids of Ocean Discovery. Oh, how I appreciate your enthusiasm, even if it’s via pie bribery. (Pie-bery? I think that’s real.)
Apple ginger pie
BUT this year I’m revamping NaNoPIEMo. A few reasons go into this, one of which includes exhaustion. But what is most important is that you’ll still get your pie, and hopefully you’ll still want to help me give the kids of City Heights an opportunity to learn about science.
Here’s my story.
I’ve always had a fantasy that I would travel the world and find out the favorite pastry-filled comfort food of other country’s citizens. Like the empanada, samosa, pastilla, shepherd’s pie, and sweet potato pie, cherry pie, strawberry rhubarb, key lime, and on and on. I imagined myself sitting in other folks’ kitchens learning how to make their “pies” and in turn we would share family stories about foods. I knew this fantasy had an astronomical price tag so it probably wasn’t going to come to be.
Then, at the end of last year’s NaNoPIEMo, one of the teenage students I work with, Nadia, came up to me when I shared my new book How to Write a Novel in 20 Pies, and asked if I would teach her sister how to make my pies and her sister would teach me how to make samosas. Would I?!
This year my fantasy will take place here in City Heights, San Diego. It will start on November 15 and go through November 30. I will share the stories I receive and I hope to learn many new recipes. The weeks will be organized (unlike the frenzy in the past), so I’ll give you a head’s up on some of the pies, maybe all.
This is where YOU come in. I would love for you to send me your pastry-filled/pie recipes and a story of how you enjoyed the pie, pastry, as a child, adult. I’ll be asking the kids in City Heights and their families to participate too. You’ll get to meet some of them on social media reels. And, all the pies will still be auctioned off. I hope that you’ll want to help with the fundraising, with the storytelling, and of course, the eating. It’s NaNoWriMo after all, the inspiration for NaNoPIEMo, and so if you’re writing your heart out you’ll need comfort foods. And, don’t forget, even if you live in Guatemala, or Santee, or New Jersey, you can still bid and donate your pie to someone else, or the kids (they love my pies!). And, you can easily send me a story from anywhere.
I already have a recipe for empanadas from Suzanne Rodriguez in Cuernavaca, Mexico. And, I have a story about chicken pot pie and how I snagged Eber.
I can’t wait to get started. I’ll share more about how it will work, and I’ll be learning as I go, just as I did with NaNoPIEMo, so bear with me. OH! And that reminds me. The new name is Pie for Pi: Bake Sale for Ocean Discovery Kids. I’m going to just call it Pie for Pi. Or maybe that should be Pie 4 Pi. Or 4 + 2xπ. No, too much algebra for me.
This missive is too long, so I hope you read to the end, and I hope you’ll be as big of a participant as you have in the past, or maybe bigger, and I hope you’ll start thinking about your favorite pastry-filled comfort food and the story to go along with it.
I can’t wait! Is it Nov 15 yet?
Enjoy some photos of folks I’ve made pie with and pies I’ve made during past NaNoPIEMos.
