Hi friends in pie. It may feel as though we made our epic announcement two weeks ago and then fell off the face of the earth, but in reality we made our epic announcement two weeks ago and then we just got really busy! We’ve made several visits to our potential neighborhoods to check out the pie climate, I’ve been chatting with pie professionals across the country, we’re back on blogging track, and Mamma Pie is in town for a lovely, lengthy visit. How excellent is the month of October so far?

As we move past our initial announcement of Cincinnati being our final city choice we now have the delightful task of deciding where we want to live (and eventually decide where we want to open the shop as well … but that’s a little further down the line). I think best case scenario, we choose to live in a neighborhood that we absolutely fall in love with and then in a little while, once we’ve thoroughly introduced Teeny Pies to the city, we open the shop in that same neighborhood. The worst case scenario is that we choose to live in a neighborhood that we absolutely fall in love with and then because of currently unknown extenuating circumstances we open the shop in a different neighborhood that we also love deeply. And if that’s the worst case scenario, then I’m pretty sure I’m winning. Our top two life neighborhoods are Northside and Covington and our top three pie shop neighborhoods are Northside, Covington, and Findlay Market. We spent the last two weekends traipsing around each of the potential pie hotspots with our families, peering into houses, supporting the local retail, and imagining life there. It’s been a delight and to say I’m excited and ready to dive right in is an understatement. I’m ready to buy a house, rent a building, and start slinging pie … Aaron and Mamma Pie have to constantly remind me that there’s no rush, and it’s better to do it right, and I’m going to want to think long and hard about the next few life changes, and all I hear is blah, blah, wait, blah, don’t rush, blah, blah. What I’m saying is, let’s buy a mansion because I’m ready.

Since no one will let me just buy a house online I’ve been taking Mamma Pie around Danville and showing her all of our summertime-livin’ sights. We did our laundry at the laundromat/tanning salon, visited the doll-house museum, she helped me finish my constellation quilt, we had an extensive conversation about what to look for when considering which mansion to buy, had lunch in covington, are going to the horse races on Friday and today we are making pie, because … duh.

I love baking with my mom, and obviously making pie with her is the ultimate flour-filled day. She just has a certain knack that I have tried to emulate throughout my ongoing pie adventures. She’s the one that taught me to try and try again, that practice makes perfect, and if and when the time comes that you’re insanely frustrated because nothing is going right, to toss it out and start fresh. I grew up watching her and her mom put together family meals, grow epic gardens, can and pickle themselves silly, and bake the perfect pies. Without knowing I would end up in the world of professional food I knew without a doubt that I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be able to make stock from leftover bones, I wanted to someday have my own epic garden, I wanted to have a million recipes in my head, and I wanted to be able to make the perfect pie at a moments notice. And here we are, roasting a pumpkin that I grew in my not-quite-so-epic-but-still-lovely garden and whipping up the perfect pumpkin pie at a moments notice. I am truly my mother’s daughter and I couldn’t be more pleased. Happy fall everyone, I hope your lives are full of cider, light sweaters, roasty pumpkin seeds and the perfect pie.

(look at this solid and incredibly miniature pie making scene we encountered in a dollhouse kitchen! … those apple cores tho.)