pie glorious pie — pie party potluck live 2011 recap

pie glorious pie — pie party potluck live 2011 recap

With arms full of pies and cameras dangling from our sides, M and I arrived at Rodeo Bar a little after 11am, but the doors were locked. As I peeked through the glass, Lily, the manager, came bouncing towards us and gestured that place wasn’t open for brunch yet. When she saw that we were over-equipped to eat omelets, she realized Pie Party Potluck LIVE was ready for staging.

We jumped into setting up with name tags, pie labels, sign-in sheets, a toaster for warming up the bake goods if necessary, arranging door prizes for display, etc. before the participants arrived. With the buzz and excitement of a party, guests started to arrive early.

It took about an hour for all the pies to find their spots on the long counter—over 70 pies, tarts, galettes and all their cousins gathered in a glorious double conga line. The pie paparazzi clicked away with as much reaching and contorting for the right shot as you’d see at a red carpet event. The group was exuberant in meeting fellow-bloggers and writers—and in anticipation of tasting likely suspects they had picked out of the lineup. Then, it was time to begin the hard work of nibbling on as many of them as possible before getting full.

After several rounds of sampling, we gathered for the raffle of door prizes. We gave away food processor, chocolate gift baskets, bakeware bundles, toaster oven, cookbooks and many more. The day ended with folks taking home small portions of their favorite pies to savor again the next day.

Special Thanks

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people for their generous support of Pie Party Potluck LIVE:

• Rodeo Bar for donating the venue. Lily, Raoul and staff for making sure our event went smoothly.

Mitch Rose for effortlessly taking photos for this post.

• Quin, Thong (@ningkiling) and the adorable Frances donating their time to help make the party a success.

KitchedAid, Scharffen Berger, Chicago Metallic, Bigelow Tea, Driscoll’s Berries, Jarlsberg Cheese, Ivy Bakery, Gilded Fork, Lillian Huang, Sarabeth Levine, Abby Dodge, Justin Schwartz, Brian Yarvin, Pam Anderson, Georgie Kubarych, Mark Tafoya, Jennifer Iannolo for donating various items for door prizes.

• If you want the recipe for Bittersweet Chocolate Dulce de Leche Tart

• To read other recaps on Pie Party Potluck LIVE