I Wrote the Following Words Last December When We Announced Our First New England Pie Getaway
If you could design the perfect pie getaway, what would you include? A gorgeous kitchen to work in, shoulder-to-shoulder with good pie friends? Winding country roads with panoramas of red-gold fall leaves around every bend? Crisp, juicy apples straight from the orchard, and the King Arthur Baker's Store just a short drive away? Personal pie lessons from one of America's premier pie instructors?
At the risk of sounding a bit full of myself, I think I really nailed it. (I didn't realize at the time that our pies' apples and pears would come from the trees in our front yard rather than a local orchard!) But I do believe I painted a picture that all of this year's Getaway attendees would find vividly familiar.
The Vermont Hills Were Alive with the Fragrance of Pies Baking
That, according to those who wandered anywhere near our baking-home-away-from-home the last two weekends in September. Apple, apple-pear, top-crust, crumb-crust, vanilla-scented pastry cream - our back-to-back Pie Getaways were an all-out, assault on the senses, punctuated with the clatter of mixing spoons, the thump of rolling pins, and the friendly chatter of new friendships. Our only concern? Whether or not the black bear that calls these parts home would come knocking on our door looking for a handout.
Would You Like to Join Us for The 2020 New England Pie Getaway?
Then get on the list and get all the details as soon as registration opens. We hope to see you there!
The Short History of Our Pie Getaways
When my wife, Bev, and I decided to host our first Pie Getaway back in 2014 we launched the idea of a grand pie baking weekend on little more than a wing and a prayer. At the time I had many more questions than answers. Where could we hold the Getaway? What sort of pies should we bake? Would anybody come? And if they did, would everyone get along and have a good time? (And those were just my first tier worries; some of my worries had sub-worries.) But in the end I knew pie makers were a special breed so I put my faith in this simple logic: if you bring a bunch of enthusiastic pie makers together for a weekend, how bad could things possibly go? We picked a nearby city - Savannah, Georgia - put out the word, rented an inn, and held our first Pie Getaway. (con't below)
Our original 2014 Pie Getaway crew, below, at our Savannah inn.
Things never did go bad that weekend; quite the contrary. In fact, we never have experienced a sour note at one of our Pie Getaways - not at the first, not at the subsequent four we held in Charleston, SC, not at our just-concluded New England Pie Getaways in Woodstock, Vermont.
Thanks to our special recipe of careful planning, lots of personal, hands-on instruction, and - most importantly - our fabulous pie baker attendees, our Pie Getaways have been unqualified successes.
Over the years those pie bakers have included teachers, lawyers, doctors, state troopers, football coaches, stay-at-home moms, retired soldiers, Realtors, concert pianists, and even funeral directors.
They hail from the West Coast - four from California and two from Oregon for this Getaway - Utah, Virginia, Ohio and everywhere in between. They come to celebrate anniversaries - a 1st and 25th this time - birthdays and personal friendships.
Diverse as they are, the one thing our attendees always seem to have in common is a love of pie and faith in its magical power to help forge friendships and facilitate goodwill.
We’ll be back in Vermont in the fall of 2020 - timed to coincide with the release of my massive new pie book - but we’re always open to new locations for future Pie Getaways. If you have suggestions, we’d love to hear from you.
We hope you can join us at one of our future Getaways. If not, we hope you enjoy a taste with these photos, and please know that we’re honored to have you in The Pie Academy community.
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