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No More Mr. Nice Pie, Toronto, ON (2026)

08/04/2026

Smart cookie.
🍪
Seems to me that most, if not all, calendar days are made sweeter with the addition of a chocolate chip cookie. Adding National Chocolate Chip Day to the mix feels a touch unnecessary, but I can’t find fault with an excuse to bake a batch.👩🏻‍🍳 Depending on the day, (and the job), I’ve turned out chocolate chip cookies as tiny as a cookie scoop would permit and large enough to fill a 12” tart pan and slice in wedges.
The pictured version falls somewhere in the middle and I’m fairly certain, was not what Ruth Graves Wakefield had in mind when she first added bits of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bars to her blond cookie batter. Times and ingredients change. Ruth’s recipe did not call for brown butter nor sprinkling the tops with Maldon sea salt. (Worthy additions found in the stellar cookies made by Erica Leahy Three Daughters Baking Co ) And it’s doubtful that banging a cookie sheet filled with underbaked cookies on the counter was something Ruth practiced at the Toll House Inn. Regardless, it’s a fine day for chocolate chip cookies, and an excellent reason to be thankful for Ruth Graves Wakefield’s contribution to the cookie jars of America. For many of us, this cookie is the “one.”

07/24/2026

Wake up and smell the coffee cake 🫐
☕️
Just-picked blueberries and local eggs from Second Drop Farm | The Berkshires enhance a classic morning bake. Cake flour yields a tender crumb, sour cream adds just enough tang and a cinnamon-forward streusel pairs beautifully with the first coffee out of the Chemex Coffeemaker.

07/21/2026

Very cherry.
🍒
The all-too-brief gift of summer, sour cherry pie coaxes the truest, brightest flavor from the precious, (yet persnickety), stone fruit. On a recent side trip to Kinderhook, NY, my sour cherry hopes were answered in green corrugated quart containers.

I’m sure that a perfectly tasty sour cherry pie can be made with frozen fruit and far less fuss than my version. Recipes vary wildly; some get fiddly with ingredients and many ask an awful lot of the baker. My take on it is that sour cherries are rare beauties and a pie showcasing these elusive gems deserves few ingredients and plenty of care. Sure, there’s a good bit involved in the pitting, blind baking and taming of runaway cherry juice. And if you believe in lattice and not double crust, there is also the requisite weaving and chilling. One more deterrent is accepting the clean-up; approaching your workstation with the same stick-to-itiveness required at a crime scene is helpful. (Also highly recommended is the avoidance of white cotton, linen and damask while baking and serving.) Regardless, if you’re lucky enough to come across a quart or two, your summer will be sweeter with baking and sharing sour cherry pie. 🥧

07/13/2026

Peach and Quiet.
🍑
At long last, local peaches from the farm just up the road. Three and a half pounds of thickly sliced freestones require a lengthy bake and an even longer cooling time. And thinking back to when Amy Halloran and WAMC Northeast Public Radio asked me to single out one pie as my favorite, I told them it was comparable to choosing a favorite child and I couldn’t do it. This pie, however, comes awfully close.

07/11/2026

Cookies to puzzle by.

A nod to the intensely flavored strawberries consumed by the handful Dromgarriff Rainforest 🍓, freeze dried strawberries provide a quick fix (sidestepping a lengthy international flight). Scarlet stained fingertips eventually wash away, but memories of wonderful folks and grand adventures are fade resistant. 💕

07/01/2026

Where the Woodland Meets the Sea: A Magical Gathering of Pie Birds.
🥧🧈🛘🌊🍓🍏🍩☘️

It is nearly impossible to express in words the magic of a week spent Dromgarriff Rainforest often referred to as one of the last temperate rainforests in Ireland. You would imagine that holiday-ing amidst this magnificent backdrop is a gift in itself. Add to the mix a group of 14 ‘pie birds’ from various parts of the US, Canada and Ireland, most who started the week as strangers. Sharing a common denominator of butter appreciation and a mutual love for pie, by the end of the first dinner this wonderful group had become fast friends. Heartfelt gratitude to Pie Bird Farm , the mastermind behind the retreat, and to Esther and Andy for their divine hospitality and knowledge. Always learning from Kourtney Rojas Orla Bogbean Black Market Bakery Jen Honovic Herczeg ❤️Thanks for joining Barbara Gray Carrie McElroy Eisenhandler Roy Eisenhandler Mark Lee, Jeane, Lynn and Linda. And a very special shout out to Maurice for his boundless energy and affection. 🐕‍🦺🐾

06/14/2026

A New York State of Mind and Pie
🏀
I’m a touch superstitious when it comes to high stakes sporting events. NYC teams in particular catch my attention, always leading me down a rabbit hole of Manhattan food history. Watching the saga of the Knicks unfold has been a real nail biter. It wasn’t until Friday that I shared a little pie and a smidgen of basketball knowledge with host Ray Graf on Albany’s public radio station wamc 📻
The NBA finals provided a perfect opportunity to discuss an olde school dessert that aligns itself perfectly with NY; the Knickerbocker Glory.
Originally served as a parfait combining vanilla ice cream, strawberries, whipped cream, strawberry sauce and a cookie wafer crown, the once popular sweet is indeed tied to the Big Apple. Although the Brits lay claim to the treat and serve it religiously across the pond, it is definitively American, specifically the name.
Washington Irving’s 1809 satirical parody, A History of NY refers to descendants of the city’s Dutch settlers as “knickerbockers.” Over time, the name became associated with New Yorkers. 🗽
My early encounters with the Knickerbocker sundae took place in Queens and Manhattan because ice cream sundae outings were synonymous with both my Great Aunt Lily and my paternal grandmother, Minnie. Later, as a college student studying abroad Ithaca College , Knickerbocker sundaes were for the offing at many ice cream parlors and hotels. Like most London experiences, the red and white sundae with its wafer cornet was life changing.)
Friday’s 90 degree heat precluded my original plan of transporting an ice cream pie to Albany. Instead, I opted for a slightly adjacent, yet still very NY filling, cheesecake. Local strawberries and cookie wafers captured the Knickerbocker Glory flavor profile. In the end, the public radio peeps kicked off the weekend in NYC style while Ray Graf picked up a few bits of sports/sweets trivia. And last night’s win (as witnessed amongst some of my favorite New Yorkers), proved glorious, indeed.

06/14/2026

I’m a touch superstitious when it comes to high stakes sporting events. NYC teams in particular catch my attention, always leading me down a rabbit hole of Manhattan food history. Watching the saga of the Knicks unfold has been a real nail biter. On Friday, I had the pleasure of chatting with host Ray Graf on Albany’s public radio station wamc 📻 The NBA finals provided a perfect opportunity to talk about an olde school dessert that aligns itself perfectly with NY; the Knickerbocker Glory. 🏀
Originally served as a parfait combining vanilla ice cream, strawberries, whipped cream, strawberry sauce and a cookie wafer crown, the once popular sweet is indeed tied to the Big Apple, (although the Brits lay claim to the treat). 🗽(Fact: I first ordered a Knickerbocker sundae in 1977, studying abroad Ithaca College It was life changing.)
Washington Irving’s 1809 satirical parody, A History of NY refers to descendants of the city’s Dutch settlers as “knickerbockers.” Over time, the name became tethered to New Yorkers. 🏙️ Friday’s 90 degree heat precluded my original plan of transporting an ice cream pie to Albany. Instead, I opted for a slightly adjacent, yet still very NY filling, cheesecake. Local strawberries and cookie wafers captured the Knickerbocker Glory flavor profile. In the end, the public radio peeps kicked off the weekend in NYC style while Ray Graf picked up a few tidbits of trivia. And last night’s win (as witnessed amongst some of my favorite New Yorkers), proved glorious, indeed.

06/08/2026

A few pics from the 79th Annual TONY Awards plus a little trivia.
🎭✍️
In the almost 80 year history of the Tony’s, only a handful of female playwrights have been awarded the Tony for Best Play. Last night, Bess Wohl took a well deserved place among an all-too-short list of women for her American memory play, Liberation. Her predecessors include:
Francis Goodrich for The Diary of Anne Frank in 1956
Wendy Wasserstein for The Heidi Chronicles in 1989
Yasmina Reza for Art in 1998 and again in 2009 for God of Carnage.
We also learned that performing on Broadway isn’t necessarily a requirement for hosting the TONY Awards. Case in point, Pink, who masterfully helmed last evening’s festivities. 👏👏
Seated in the massive Art Deco style theatre, I couldn’t help but recall the agony of studying and memorizing the seating chart for RCMH when I worked there as a member of Guest Relations. (The staggering number of seats is just shy of 6,000; 5,960 according to my notes. Also squirreled away in a drawer is my olde laminated employee pass. Thankfully, my ability to type catapulted me from Guest Relations to the Art Department which redirected my career path in the best possible way. 😉

05/22/2026

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” - Henry David Thoreau
🍓🥧

Celebrating the season with straight-up strawberry pie. Cornmeal plays back-up in both the crust and biscuit topping. (This is one instance where I turn to my red box of Minute Tapioca to tame the deluge of strawberry juices.) As you kick off the holiday weekend, a reminder- strawberries are delicate creatures; be gentle with them! And take a moment to appreciate the back breaking work of farmers who plant, nurture and gather the freckled fruit.
Sending the berry best of luck to all of the bakers in the thick of Memorial Day Weekend/Strawberry Festival mayhem.
(Here’s looking at you .fromscratch 🍓💕 and counting down the days until we create some pie magic along with our pie pal )

No More Mr. Nice Pie

08/04/2026

07/24/2026

07/21/2026

07/13/2026

07/11/2026

07/01/2026

06/14/2026

06/14/2026

06/08/2026

05/22/2026

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