pie as currency

Photo by A.V. Crofts

As I've written before on this blog, pie is my superpower. But lately as autumn nips at the heels of summer, I realize it's more than that: pie is a form of currency. 

For starters, I use pie as payment to guest speakers in my classes at the University of Washington. I started this tradition last year and plan to continue to bestow pies of all kinds on those souls good enough to give me and my students a chunk of their Saturday. I'm quite proud that I can commute by bike to campus while balancing a pie.

Dangling the promise of pie isn't reserved exclusively for guest speakers. I shamelessly appealed to Kristin Hersh's appetite by offering her a wild blackberry pie in exchange for an interview she generously provided me a week and a half ago. I can say with confidence she would have been happy to talk with me without a pie, but it felt good to me to give her one of my creations, when I've loved so many of hers. I bake the way she plays guitar: I put my whole self into it.

Finally, tonight was the second annual "Pie in the Park" fundraiser in Casco, Maine, one of my summer stomping grounds. For $2 a slice, you could have your choice of pie (whipped cream optional) and then lounge in the cool grass while the band Mr. Moon crooned haunting harmonies. I brought the apple pie photographed above to donate to the cause and ended up sampling blueberry, strawberry-rhubarb, cherry, and apple.

If I were an ATM machine, I'd dispense slices of pie.