PIE SATISFACTION

Years ago while eating breakfast in a diner with two friends, The Pie Guy truck drove by.  The three of us got all excited: PIE!  Holy crap on a cracker.  We made it our mission to pay the check, hightail it to one car, and chase the truck down.  It didn't take us long to find The Pie Guy truck; it was at Whole Foods Market, a perfectly reasonable place for The Pie Guy to be.  After all, The Pie Guy pies are on the pricey side, and so is Whole Paycheck Market.

Flash forward many years ... like a decade.

I am having a tough few days at work.  State testing for my subject just ended, and people's nerves and circuitry are beyond frayed.  I have several errands to run after work, so I decide to pick up some avocado spring rolls with peanut sauce for dinner.  These are only sold around here at Whole Foods Market.

Of course, I am also secretly searching for Effie's Pecan Nut Cakes (glorified cracker-cookies), also sold at Whole Foods.  I systematically go up and down the aisles and search end-cap displays.  (This is not, I am almost ashamed to admit, the first time I've done this.)  I only find Effie's Cocoa Cakes (also glorified cracker-cookies), and I'm not sure they're good enough.

However, in my quest for avocado spring rolls with peanut sauce and my quest for Effie's, I pass a familiar refrigerator case near the bakery: The Pie Guy pie display.

At first I pass right by the pies and desserts.  I don't need an entire pie!  I mean, I DO, but I'm not going to get myself an entire pie.  Then, I circle back.  I discover that there are individual-sized pies in the case.  I glance at the variety, which is a horrible understatement on my part because there is a shelf devoted to mini-pies: key lime or chocolate cream.

Eh.  I'm not a huge fan of either.  My pie of choice by The Pie Guy is strawberry-rhubarb.  But, I'm not going to lie: the chocolate cream looks really, really, REALLY tasty.  I decide that in honor of the one morning so many years ago, the time when my friends and I chased a random delivery truck around the center of town just to get pie, that I will indeed bring home the chocolate cream single-serving The Pie Guy pie.

The bad news: The Pie Guy crust works much better in a larger pie format than in a small format.  The good news: I think this will cure me of my hankering for anything by The Pie Guy.  Well, perhaps until the strawberry-rhubarb season gets into full swing.  Then, my friends, just like that morning when we careened around town searching for a delivery truck, all bets are off.