An expensive piece of nostalgia that many will pay: Salted: NPR
An employee of Grand Traverse Pie Co. in Michigan makes cherry pies. The company has been shipping pies since 1998, when people still had to call in their orders.
Beryl Striewski / Grand Traverse Pie Co.
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Beryl Striewski / Grand Traverse Pie Co.
An employee of Grand Traverse Pie Co. in Michigan makes cherry pies. The company has been shipping pies since 1998, when people still had to call in their orders. Beryl Striewski / Grand Traverse Pie Co.
It's almost comical – how difficult it is to get this pie out of the box. On the inside of the well-lost dad, it packs peanuts around another box that is set so tight, lifting it like playing a game.
Finally, I see the cake. Pastries from Virginia's Red Truck Bakery are swaddled in bubble wrap, shrunk and topped with a circle of cardboard. And in all this, baked into a thick reusable tin, is a pristine meat cake that has spent the last day traveling across most of the country to its final destination at the Oregon door.
Mail order represents about 30 percent of the business of Red Truck Bakery in Warrenton, Va. "We've probably done everything we can with the two stores, and they are in full capacity," says owner Brian Noyes, who has just released a new cookbook.
Lauren Parnell Marino / Flickr
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Lauren Parnell Marino / Flickr
Mail order represents about 30 percent of the business of Red Truck Bakery in Warrenton, Va. "We've probably done everything we can with the two stores, and they are in full capacity," says owner Brian Noyes, who has just released a new cookbook.
Lauren Parnell Marino / Flickr
Every year, countless pies in the country go from bakeries to doorsteps, and raging in popularity just before Thanksgiving and leading up to the winter holidays. The first time I got a cake by mail, I finished high school and moved across the country for college. It reminded me of everything I missed while comforting my home length with every bit.
Brian Noyes, owner of Red Truck Bakery, says that shipping accounts for about 30 percent of his business. "We've probably done everything we can with the two stores, and they are in full capacity," says Noyes. He has just launched a cookbook a few months ago, and is on a book trip that "really opens many new eyes to what we do." And many of the new eyes don't live anywhere near Virginia. But just because it's a cookbook doesn't mean that people will. "I always tell people," Look, we're going to make the ground for you, "says Noyes.
Make sure pies come to their final destinations in one piece, not easy, and it comes with a cost. Sending a cake (which is always sent with one or two-day email, or risking being unfreezing or being squished) varies depending on how far it goes, and usually costs as much as the cake itself – maybe even more. 19659008] Allison Kave, cookbook author and co-owner of New York's Butter and Scotch, a bakery (and bar!) In Brooklyn, says that many people stand for the price. see the shipping prices. "As a result, most of their orders come from the tri-state area, where the cost of sending a cake is much lower.
The delivery trolley for Estes Park Pie Shop Bakery and Diner in Colorado gives a pointed message that can make meat meat out of appetite control.
Cyrus McCrimmon / Denver Post via Getty Images
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Cyrus McCrimmon / Denver Post via Getty Images
The delivery trolley for Estes Park Pie Shop Bakery and Diner in Colorado provides a pointy message that can make mince out of your appetite control.
Cyrus McCrimmon / Denver Post via Getty Images
Although mail order when people who are far away, it is accidental with pie deliveries. Sometimes, despite the baker's best packing measures, pies are greased or sit too long on a lane due to a delay that comes long after both the cake and its freezer packs have melted.
"We had an occurrence one year where the neighbor's dog really got the cake," said Renee Brown, who works in Michigan's Achatz Handmade Pie Co.'s "Pies that Fly" division. "The dog was loose, torn up and destroyed it. "They replaced the cake, Brown says.
In addition to its six places, Achatz makes wholesale, and even with more than 1,000 pies shipped out in November this year, mail order represents only a small part of sales." trying to go the extra mile for the customer, and this is one of the things we do. "But getting the pies out the door, Brown says, is a" multi-step process "and" a lot of work. "
When you consider that you can buy a cake in almost any grocery store – and there are many specialty stores – there is no reason why non-bakers should go to mail order to get their cake set. Mike Busley, co-owner of Grand Traverse Pie Co. in Michigan, has been shipping pays since 1998, when people still had to call in their orders. Most of these recent years are either gifts or up on people's holiday tables, says Busley. He tells me that every time he eats a cake, he thinks of his grandmother, who is no longer near. "Pie is one of the things that takes you back in time, and it's a whole segment [of the population] who wants to recreate a particular moment in their life with pie." Busley adds, "People want the best, and they're willing to spend more."
Today, most people travel far from their hometowns for their holidays. They may not have mom's ham, and maybe their Thanksgiving came with canned cranberry sauce instead of fresh, but they can order a break just like the one they grew up with – in some cases, the exact one she grew up with – and delivered it to their doorstep.
Brown tells me that Achatz has a long-term customer living in Minnesota. "When she's in town, she'll go to the nearest [location]," Brown says. Even when it's a four or five hour drive. "But she goes because she wants a cannoli pie. People are crazy for pie," she says, then pause.
Tove K. Danovich is a journalist based in Portland, Ore .
