Saturday afternoon, my family and I traveled to the magical land of Terre Haute! (I'm sure most of you are awe-struck, so I'll give you a minute to take it all in.)
For those of you not well acquainted with Hoosier geography, I'll attempt to give you a visual. If Indiana were the human body, Terre Haute (pronounced "terra hoat") would be the knee pit. Not the armpit or the butt crack (those honors are reserved for Fort Wayne and Veedersburg respectively) but the knee pit.
If you've ever been there, you know that Terre Haute boasts both Indiana State University and a powerful stench. To this day, I don't know why, but Terre Haute smells like ass.
So, why on earth would I go there voluntarily? Well, it just so happens that Terre Haute has one of the finest establishments in this country. Saturday afternoon, we patronized the Grand Traverse Pie Company in all its breath-taking glory.
This phenomenal business began in Michigan and thankfully made its way down to Indiana. It's somewhat unfortunate that the only franchises are in Terre Haute (2 hour drive) and Evansville (4 hour drive), but it was totally worth the trip.
At some point during last week, my mother and I decided we needed good pie, so we bullied my dad into a little excursion. It depends from where you hail (I love that phrase), but from Lafayette, the drive to Terre Haute is not an eventful one, nor a scenic one at that. It's a lot of windy, nauseating country roads through little, weenie towns hosting one stoplight and a Walgreens, maybe.
We made it to Terre Haute at about 4:30pm and decided that was a good enough time to eat dinner. Actually, I love eating before 5pm because I'm always hungry at about 3pm anyway. Waiting until 6 or even 7pm just seems cruel. Now I know why the elderly set do it. When I'm retired and living my golden years, I will be eating breakfast at 11am, lunch at 4pm, dinner around 9 or 10pm and bedtime by 2am, the way God intended.
Anyway, we had the obligatory meal before dessert, which was quite delicious. Then came the reason we had made this trip. Oh sweet mother of pearl, the pie.
My mother has a personal affinity for peach, my dad prefers the more traditional apple, and I have had a torrid love affair with something called strawberry-rhubarb ever since college. My freshman-year roommate at IU made me a strawberry-rhubarb pie from scratch. I was completely nauseated the next day, but I think it had something to do with the fact that I ate 4 pieces. Tough call.
As we headed out the door, we took with us two cherry crumble pies (one was for a friend, I swear) and I selected an apple dumpling the size of my face, that will, no doubt, make me vomit within the hour (I won't be sorry. I'm never sorry.).
I took some pictures with my cell phone. While the quality isn't fantastic, I think they still manage to capture the raw emotions of the day.
Shiny thing! Just at this very moment, I remembered an article I read in the Journal and Courier sometime within the last two weeks, regarding the possibility of a state pie. While I would be all for this, I'm completely disgusted with the pie that is in the running. Most refer to it as sugar cream, but crap on toast seems far more accurate to me (or simply "phlegm", which is how my mom refers to it).
Now, I know we're somewhat limited in our choices. We can't have cherry because that tends to belong to Michigan. Georgia would throw down if we chose peach, and rightfully so. Key lime obviously belongs to Florida (that would be my favorite cream pie, by the way).
So, what does that leave us?
TONS!
Blueberry, sweet potato, chocolate mousse, raspberry or how about apple pie, for crying out loud? Last I checked, this was America's Heartland and what is more flipping American than apple pie (other than the Cubs leading their division into the playoffs and then choking when they're a stone's throw from the pennant)? Nothing! I will not be represented by a gelatinous funk someone had the audacity to call pie.
As this hissy fit comes to a close, I implore each and every one of you to take a look into your heart and ask yourself, when was the last time you had a really bitchin' piece of pie? If the answer is not, "Oh, well I'm eating some at this very moment!", you had best fix that. If your answer is, "I don't like pie", you had best move.
"When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmmmm, boy."
-Jack Handy
3 comments:
Do they only sell pie?
I'm glad you asked that, Sara! They sell so much more than pie (although that is the highlight). Allow me to point you in their general direction:
http://www.gtpie.com/
LOL ohhh the sugar cream pie fiasco. We actually devoted a full 2 minutes of each newscast to that topic when it was under debate in the state house. THEN a week later we had to devote another minute or so to the fact that everyone had made too big a deal out of the fact that our state legislators were spending time on this issue. And apparently the reason they picked sugar cream pie is because there's some pie factory that cranks them out in Indiana and creates a lot of jobs and revenue for the Hoosier state. But I agree...not my first choice for a State Pie.
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