It is Saturday 3.14 so you have time to either make a pie or find a pie shop and, most importantly, eat pie! I don’t need an excuse and I’ve been baking and enjoying eating pie at specialty bakeries.
I gave a pie coupon to a friend and she hinted that when Lent is over she’d like a key lime pie. I’ve never made one so I searched for a recipe. Decided to try Sally’s Baking Addiction recipe with macadamia nuts in the graham cracker crust. The pie itself has just three ingredients: lime juice, sweetened condensed milk, and 4 egg yolks. I shared it with my neighbors over dinner and it was intensely sweet and sour. Yum.
If you are in Humboldt County, proceed to Bittersweet/Slice of Humboldt Pie a pie and cider shop in Arcata, California. I had a delicious salad so I could eat the peanut butter pie (with chocolate bottom layer) for dessert. My friends enjoyed a chicken pot pie and the chocolate bottomed banana cream pie and the apple pie. Yum, yum, yum, yum!
If you are in Sacramento, there is a new pie shop in Carmichael (a suburb of Sacramento) called I (heart) Pie. Mom and I checked it out. They just serve pie and coffee or tea. The website suggested they might offer other food so we had to reroute to Rubios for lunch and then try the coconut cream pie. Yum! The shop had just been profiled in the local paper so many options were sold out. They bake 8 inch pies and normally serve in quarters. We bought a whole pie and asked them to cut by six slices so Mom and I could enjoy a slice each and she could take the rest home to share with friends. Everyone wins.
Friends, go out there and eat some pie!
We tried the drinking chocolate, which was so rich that the sample quite satisfied. One of the salespeople gave us an extensive explanation of how chocolate is produced. I’ve been to the Cadbury factory in Dunedin, NZ and the process is very similar. The main difference is one of scale. As a chocoholic I didn’t mind listening to the magic of how the humble cocoa bean becomes delicious.
In my lifetime California has turned from a conservative leaning state to a solidly liberal state. We have two presidential libraries–one for Richard M. Nixon and one for Ronald Reagan and there are still many Republicans, Libertarians, and other conservatives living in California. They are out-numbered by Democrats 2 to 1, and also outnumbered by people declining to state a party (independents). The Republicans might have remained more competitive if Governor Pete Wilson had not decided to villify Latinos and lost their votes (most are not immigrants either) for the forseeable future. One of the remaining conservative enclaves is Simi Valley in Ventura, CA. It is just down the road from Apricot Lane Farm. Traffic being tricky, I opted to arrive super early and stop somewhere close to the farm for breakfast. All reviews pointed to the 
The woman sitting next to me ordered an amazing looking egg salad sandwich. I asked if I could take a picture of it. This led to a lovely conversation. She drops in for lunch whenever she is in this part of West Los Angeles.
 I had dug through my travel files to find my issue of the now defunct Lucky Peach magazine Winter 2016 issue that focuses on Los Angeles. As I read it more carefully on the Southwest flight to Burbank, I kept running across mentions of The Apple Pan. Sammy Harkham calls the Apple Pan his personal favorite. He focuses on the burger: “The burger is, hands down, the best fucking burger in the world.”
I did a quick turn through Dot’s “best Bloody shop for miles.” It was an interesting collection of home design items, but all breakable, largish items that are like dead weight when you travel. She also offers an interesting plant selection–again not great for overseas travelers. After my week driving through South Island, I could understand the draw. The mostly small towns that dot the countryside don’t offer a lot of shopping options. Here in one stop you will likely find something you want or need or at least have fun trying.
americanjulie.com 