DEARMAIZIE

‪I want to open a chain of small, cozy but bright automats that serve nothing but delicious, fresh, homemade pie that I would buy from the best bakers in town.

And I want them to be called pie bars.

Our summer special would be key lime pie – nothing else, all summer long – and our winter special would be a variety of cherry. The rhubarb and the tomato would be in a hard to reach section. Tomato pie sounds so good, but it’s not, despite what Jamie Schler or NYT Cooking might say, and I really like Jamie Schler. I might add a sandwich selection when we start making a lot of money. But great sandwiches are tricky and too much effort for a startup and then I’d have to call it a pie-and-sandwich-bar and that just doesn’t sound right to me and changing all the signs (holds head in hands), it’s too much right now. Tomato sandwiches are delish and a lot easier than tomato pie. Maybe I’ll take on a partner who would be the sandwich CEO.

We would also sell raw piecrust (or I guess “bake-at-home” sounds more appetizing than “raw”). And leftover baked piecrust because it is so delicious with apricot jam and melted butter. We would roll up the dough and cut it into sticks for dipping or maybe make little 2-inch wide crusts curved like a spoon on one end to scoop up the melted butter and jam. Spooncrusts and dipcrusts with your coffee or tea.

The pie bar would have a special section for dogs. Dogs also love baked piecrust, but without the jam and butter. We could do peanut butter dipcrusts for dogs, I guess, but then you would have to do the dipping and not be able to eat your pie. And then you wouldn’t enjoy yourself because you know how they look at you when you’re eating. Or, we could just serve it on a plate with the peanut butter drizzled over the dipsticks. I don’t think dogs care about dipping, do you? Or we could roll up some canned dog food or chicken or beef in piecrust and bake it. And if you don’t like that dogs are in our pie bars, then go to another pie bar, hater. Oh wait. There aren’t any pie bars besides mine? What a shame.

Also, I’ve never had rhubarb pie, so I don’t know if it’s good or not. Sounds like celery pie to me. Does to the dogs, too, so don’t try to sneak it into their section.

You can bring your cat, but she/he has to be in a carrier. If we let them run around, they’d just be jumping up on the counters and trying to fit into the slots with the pies. Sorry.