Coming soon: Ice Lemon Pie

Sweet, icicle hot, sweet as a lemon pie
 Sailing across the sky, into the ocean
 We liked it a lot you can imagine why

Pumpkin Pie

The Hummingbird Tearoom in Ruidoso

It has been a long time since our last post. Work obligations have prevented us from pursuing our pie interests!

Today we visited the Hummingbird Tearoom in Ruidoso, New Mexico and found them to be very blog worthy!

This was our waitress, Kimmie Cherry, who brought us a very nice cherry cobbler and a buttermilk pie that had a very unique blending of lemon and nutmeg flavors. It was very creamy and flavorful, sort of like a southern style Crème brûlée,. Don't let the word "buttermilk" prevent you from trying this!

Kimmie told us that the Tearoom, located on 2306 Sudderth Drive, has been in business for 22 years. Debbie and Gary, the current owners, have owned the establishment for eight years. Even if you aren't hungry, it is worth paying them a visit to view Gary's beautiful nature paintings hanging on the walls. He told us his paintings of deer, bear and other wildlife are based upon animals he has seen on their Ruidoso property.

Because of Gary's gluten allergies, they realized that many people would appreciate having a gluten free menu available. Click here to view their gluten free menu and website.

For those with no allergies, the most popular dessert is their french bread pudding. Gary told us that they have had people fly into town, drive to the restaurant for the bread pudding and then fly back out.

Fun Times at Pie Town

Great food, music and beautiful arts and crafts were featured at the Pietown celebration September 12. Around 40 pies were entered in "fruit", "nut" and "other" categories. It was a beautiful collection of pies. We would have gladly volunteered to be judges, just to taste them all, but that would have been conflict of interest!



Cathy Bissey and Midge Bishop worked countless hours organizing the contest. Many thanks to both of you and to all of the others who made this event a success.



Kathy Knapp runs an amazing restaurant called the Pie-o-neer in Pietown. We had a hard time deciding which kind of pie to choose, but finally settled on apple crumb. If you read this entire blog, you will find that over the past four months we have eaten a lot of pie at restaurants all across the country. Although we didn't try every kind of pie offered (this would take several weeks) we both agreed that the apple pie had the best crust we have ever had -- light, flaky and flavorful! If you make the trip out to Pietown, make sure to buy a couple of whole pies to take home and share!


BTW, our pecan carmel pie won the grand champion ribbon and a $100 cash prize! We will post pictures later.

Click here to see more pictures from Pietown and vicinity, including the Wild West gunfight crew. I will keep adding to this, so keep checking it.

We're not done yet!

Don't give up on us, we're not done yet!!

Our next planned post is September 11-12 for the Pie Festival in Pie Town, New Mexico, but if we find another worthy story in the meantime, we will definitely post it.

Just a word about our posts: If we visit an establishment and are not excited about the quality of the pie, we simply don't post anything. We will not reveal the names of places we did not like, following the adage "If you can't say something good...."

If you have establishments to nominate, please let us know. Our blog is mostly about the story of the people who make the pie and not the pie itself, so if you know of a unique pie maker...

Waiting to hear from you!

The Blackbird Bakery in Bristol, Virginia

This bakery has been in business just over a year and is already developing a reputation as the best place around to buy donuts and pies. There was a steady stream of customers on a Thursday morning.

Ratha Shabeldeen bakes all of the pies and pastries. When she immigrated from Lebanon over 40 years ago, she didn't know how to read. She started to learn by reading pastry recipes, working at a restaurant for 33 years and with the school district for 11.

She said she could give us the recipe for her flaky crusts, but with crust making, technique is what really matters. "Don't knead the dough," she advises, because it only makes it tough and chewy.

We had the pecan and peach pies, served in individual tins. Other specialties of the house were chocolate, coconut cream, apple, cherry and butterscotch.

Mrs. Hardesty's Tea Room in Harrisonburg, Virginia

Mary, the owner of the Tea Room, is a retired kindergarten teacher. She has been in business for about four years and makes all of the desserts served. The raspberry custard pie we had was a new item and a big hit! We had to speak up before the end of our meal to get the last piece. It came as no surprise that this establishment had recently been featured in the travel section of the Washington Post.

We also tried Mary's scones, which are incredibly light and flaky. Of course, Mary won't give out her recipe, but she did give us a hint: They contain no butter or eggs!

One of the special events at the Tea Room during the past year was historic 1850's Court Days. Mary served old fashioned chicken pot pie, Virginia Brunswick Stew and gunpowder green tea. the most popular tea of the time. This tea is made up of leaves hand-rolled into tiny pellets, therefore the name. Click here to view Hardesty's web site.