Pie Fixes Everything (podcast)
May 31st, 2012 | By Cecilia | Category: Featured Articles, podcast, the show
Colleen Sommers, Pie Fixes Everything
Find more information about the Pies & Pigs Benefit for Colleen Sommers.
This is an encore broadcast of a show that aired October 2011. However, we’ve updated it with information about the Pies & Pigs Benefit for Colleen Sommers coming up June 14, 2012.
Sweet or savory–pie fixes everything. Well, maybe not everything, but it sure makes most things, even the tough stuff, go down just a little easier.
Pies = Goodness.
And pies have been pretty darned good to Colleen Sommers, founder and head baker of the Austin, Texas based company Pie Fixes Everything. They’ve been helping her to make people happy while making a living.
I asked her about the company name when I stopped by her east Austin home back in October 2011 to see how she makes pies.
“My son and I frequently passed this random sign in a neighbor’s yard that said ‘pie fixes everything.’ It always made us smile. When I started pondering names for the company, he suggested we use that. I resisted at first, but it grew on me, and the rest is history,” she explained.
Colleen’s pie-making history is short, but sweet. She’s been baking and selling fruit pies and meat pies swaddled in delicious butter crust for a little over five years now. She’ll deliver per-ordered pies to people’s homes, or folks can pick up pies at farmers’ markets where she holds court as “Her Pieness.”
When I visited Colleen for our interview and pie-making demo (an apple plum pie!), she was very generous about showing me all the steps involved except one: how she makes her pie dough.
“A girl can’t give away all her secrets,” she laughed.
It’s no secret that pies are delicious, and most people love them; and everyone who meets Colleen loves her.
PIES & PIGS BENEFIT FOR COLLEEN SOMMERS
Colleen Sommers was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and like many in the creative class, she does not have enough health insurance to pay for her life-saving treatments. So her friends at HOPE Farmers Market, as well as many others in the food community and beyond, are joining forces to host a benefit on Thursday, June 14, 2012, to raise funds to help pay for some of her medical bills. The public is encouraged to attend, and festivities begin at 6 p.m. and continue until 9 p.m.
Not only will it be a benefit to help a very deserving woman, but it will be a whole lot of fun. In addition to a cook-off, music, a pie eating contest, and plenty of good food and libations, there will be a celebrity pie auction, and yours truly will be baking a pie for the cause.
If you wish to attend, you can buy your tickets online by clicking here. They are $25.00 each, but you can always offer more. All the money goes to Colleen for her medical bills. For additional information, or to donate an item to the silent auction,send an email to: piesandpigs@gmail.com.
Pies and Pigs Benefit for Colleen Sommers
I love peach pie!!
Learning how to make pie crust from scratch, using lard, gave me so much confidence in the kitchen! And I made a chai peach pie that people swooned over! I felt like the boss. And I think my favorite flavor of pie is a tie between chess and pumpkin.
Ohmygoodness, it would not be Thanksgiving without a yummy Pumpkin pie breakfast the Friday after. Or, barring that, sweet potato pie. I love anything in a pie shell, though. You could probably just fill it with whipped cream, and I’d be happy.
My mom always makes the most delicious pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas…I love waking up in the morning and eating it for breakfast the next day!
As a busy, traveling, Jewish rock musician I love being on the road, but I REALLY love coming home – it centers me. One of the things I have to do is bake – and bake! Teaching my daughter, Katy, to bake with me is one of the greatest ways of showing love. Pie rules!
Wild Blueberry AND Coconut Cream!! Yum!
I learned how to cook *for real* when I lived in France in my early twenties. There, I perfected the art of quiche-making! Every time I eat quiche now, I think back on how much fun it was cooking delicious food from scratch in France.
Imagine a world without pies. No, perish the thought!
Mom Mom’s (my grandmother’s) chocolate and lemon pies were the best. Gina’s chocolate/bourbon/pecan pie is a Thanksgiving tradition along with my own pumpkin pie.
My Dad always kept a quart of buttermilk in the ‘fridge, and I once unknowingly and accidentally took a big swig out of the carton. I barely made it to the sink in time to gag and spit it out. Imagine my surprise when as a teenager, I tried the buttermilk pie at Luby’s. Whoa!
I guess there’s nothing that two or three of cups of sugar can’t fix!
Pecan pie! Just use the recipe straight off the karo syrup bottle, except _double_ the amount of pecans in the filling _and_ make a lovely decoration on the top with pecan halves. Pie with spirals fixes everything!
I gotta agree — Pie really does fix everything!
From rolling out crusts, to finding new twists on a classic recipes — making pies is one my favorite things about the holidays for sure! My personal recipes that work out are bourbon pecan & key lime with fresh-squeezed juice and loads of whipped cream.