Pie Lovers Unite! – Ypsilanti, Michigan by Diane

Saturday, September 1. After a full day of touring around Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, visiting co-ops and farmers markets and community gardens, we landed at the Ypsilanti Ladies Literary Club, a beautiful building in downtown Ypsilanti, where our evening event was held. Dubbed “Pie Lovers Unite!”, the evening was hosted by Slow Food Huron Valley and Growing Hope.

The event started with Slow Food leader Kim Bayer leading the packed crowd of around 100 people in a rousing cheer of Pie Lovers Unite! with Kim chanting “Pie Lovers” and the rest of us cheering “Unite!” The tone set, we launched into an evening of excitement, great food, and a friendly crowd.

One of the highlights of the night was the pie competition. Everyone was encouraged to bring a pie to the event as admission, or to make a small donation. 31 pies were entered into the competition, and four judges spent a lot of time tasting, comparing and judging the pies. Every pie came with an index card that listed the ingredients and where they came from. There was even a pie swap at the end of the evening, where recipes were put into a basket and shared.

And if you’re wondering what kind of pies showed up, just about everything under the sun. There were quiches and savory onion pies, tomato mozzarella basil pie, eggplant pie, tofu pot pie (recipe below!), peach and cream pies, peach pie, Michigan tart cherry pie, apple, elderberry, blueberry, apple blueberry raspberry, Hubbard squash pie and lots and lots and lots of types of fruit pies – a dizzingly array actually.

We also were treated to Stucci vanilla ice cream – they might not be particularly sustainable (we’re not sure) but they’re local to Ann Arbor, and the ice cream tasted great!

If you asked me what my favorite of the evening was, I’d have to say the local Michigan tart cherry pie. I would actually go as far to say that it’s worth a road trip to Michigan to have this pie when the cherries are in season! My tastebuds are still dancing from the combination of sweet and tart in that pie – eating it was like a ballet of the senses.

Before I go on about the rest of the evening (oh, and there was more!), I want to take a minute to explain why we’re doing all this with pies. I’m not sure if I’ve been able to get across to you how we’re tying in local sustainable food with pies (mainly because I’ve been so busy eating them and exclaiming how great they taste!) I didn’t get a count on all the pies that showed up that night, but there were well over 50 – I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was even higher. Every time we thought there were no more pies, a new batch suddenly appeared from the kitchen.

And all these pies had local Michigan ingredients in them, just as the Jackson, Wyoming, pies had ingredients from Wyoming in them. We’re trying to show you all how easy it is to find and use local ingredients – and perhaps convey through words and some of our photos how delicious tasting the pies are. You don’t have to worry or think about saving the environment or the world or stopping pollution if you don’t want to – all you have to do is buy some local ingredients, bake pie, and share it with those around you. Living sustainably is that easy! And is that much fun. That’s what we’ve been trying to show people in the areas we’ve gone to and are trying to get across in our blogs. You don’t have to hard sell the local sustainable food movement – all you have to do is taste it to be won over!

Okay, back to the event. While the judges compared pies, the rest of the crowd joined in the pie walk. The names of 17 local community farms were taped to the floor in a circle around a very large banquet table. 17 guests stood on the names and walked around in a circle to music. When the music stopped, everyone stood on a farm. A name was drawn at random, and the person standing on that farm won a pie from Zingerman’s deli. The pie walk happened six times throughout the evening, so six very happy people went home with large delicious pies from Zingerman’s. (Read our blog about Zingerman’s if you want to know more about who they are and the type of food they have – the place is an Ann Arbor institution.)

After a few pie walks, and with everyone standing around the massive dining room table with a beautiful lace tablecloth, the announcement was made – you may eat the pies! Well, I’ve never seen more people leap toward food quite like the folks in Ypsilanti. Don’t get me wrong, it was orderly and polite, but maybe 60 – 70 people were all crowded around a table, plates in hand, and just all dove in at the same time.

I swore I wasn’t going to eat a lot – I’m trying to cut down to just a pie taste, but there were so many pies that my taste soon turned into an overflowing plate! But the tummy ache at the end was worth it – there were some amazing pies served that night.

During the entire evening, we were serenaded by music about pies – lots of music about pies. We’ll post the musical lineup below so you can get some ideas if you want to do your own pie event and need music ideas.

And, I don’t like to say things before the tour finishes, but I think Ypsilanti just might win for best event of the tour! I know our Red Hook event is going to be big, but it’s a big end of the tour party and we’re involved with it, so I don’t know if that can count. But last night’s event – besides the pie chanting, pie competition, pie eating, pie music and pie walk, there were even pie quotes on the walls! For example,

“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” – Carl Sagan

Also, when speaking with our host Kim earlier in the day (she and Jess from Growing Hope took us around almost the entire day – and put on a huge event that night – I could never thank them enough for their hospitality!) – but when speaking with Kim earlier in the day, she said that this pie event had brought out so many new people and that she thought it was a great way to get people interested in local food. She said it’s gotten a lot of people who didn’t know about Slow Food interested in them and also more interested in sustainability. That’s one of our goals for the trip, so I was quite pleased to hear her say that.

The other thing I really enjoyed seeing was the enthusiasm of someone like Kim. She’s really devoted to local sustainable food, and when we visited a co-op earlier in the day, she was asking them to stock local organic Michigan flour. And, yes, wheat is grown in Michigan and is milled into flour! The People’s Grocery in Ann Arbor was totally interested, and when I mentioned it to a baker at a co-op in Ypsilanti, they were also really interested. Again, something else we were hoping we could at least have a little part in.

At the end of the evening, prizes were given out for Most Local Ingredients, Tastiest Pie, Prettiest, Most Unique/Unexpected (in a good way!), and Savory. Each winner won a local ingredient Pie Kit, which included local Michigan flour, butter, sugar and apples. Also, all the children that baked a pie (I saw an apple pie baked by an 11-year-old and someone who looked younger than that won one of the awards that evening.

What an evening we had last night! They’re talking about continuing these and having annual or even perhaps semi-annual pie events – and if a pie event will ever become a tradition, I can see it in Ypsilanti. Many many thanks to Kim at Slow Food, Jess and Sharon at Growing Hope and all the amazing volunteers and folks who helped out with the event. If you’re anywhere around their area, you should definitely get involved with what they’re doing and become part of the wonderful food community in Michigan!

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Winner of Most Unusual/Unexpected Pie
Tofu Pot Pie – by Ruth Blackburn

Your favorite pie crust – enough for bottom and top. (We have a lot of pie crust recipes on the site if you don’t have a favorite crust yet.) Pre-bake bottom crust.

For filling: Combine ½ cup flour, ½ tsp garlic powder, 1 ½ tsp salt and 2T nutritional yeast (Redstar brand – not Brewers yeast) in a paper bag. Shake to mix. Add 4 cups cubed to\fu and shake again.

Saute 1 cup diced onion with ½ cup diced carrots, ½ cup diced kohlrabi and 1 ½ cups cut green beans in a large skillet with oil. Set aside when cooked to desired consistency. Then put more oil in skillet and brown tofu cubes. Put veggies back in and add ½ tsp garlic powder and 2T soy sauce. Remove from heat. (Note: you can vary the vegetables depending on the season.)

For gravy: Combine ¼ cup flour and ½ cup nutritional yeast in a saucepan. Heat gently just until you can smell them. Add 1/3 cup oil and stir as you heat it. Whisk in 1 ½ cups water and cook, whisking, until gravy consistency. Stir in 2T soy sauce, ¾ tsp salt and 1/8 tsp pepper.

Place veggies and tofu in pre-baked pie shell – cover with gravy. Put top crust on and crimp edges.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

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