VTGRANDPA VISITS THE MYSTIC PIE COMPANY

Well, its been a long time coming, or at least it seems that way, since about six weeks ago a friend of mine sent me an e-mail describing an experience he had on Church Street in Burlington. He went into great detail about a company that was giving out some free samples there of a Vermont Apple Pie. He talked about what a great crust it had and how delicious the filling was saying that it was the closest thing to a homemade apple pie he had ever tasted, ending up with, "Henry, you've just got to do a little story on this pie. It's made right here in Fairfax."

I contacted Dave Barash, owner of the Mystic Pie Company, and expressed my interest in going down to The Vermont Food Ventures down here in Fairfax Village and taking a few pictures and talking to him about his Vermont Apple Pie. He sent me back a note and told me to call him in a couple weeks to make arrangements to come down when they were making the pies and that he would love to have me come down. This I did and we set a date and time of November 8, 2004 at 10 a.m. This sounded so great that I also sent a note to Gary Rutkowski down at the St. Albans Messenger about it. Since I'm not a journalist and don't take such great pictures either, Gary sent me back a note and asked if it would be ok if he sent his new correspondent, Isaac Olson out to go visit the operation with me. Now for what happened.

Isaac Olson, taking notes, listens while David Barash, owner of Mystic Pie provides information on the company and its operation.

I had never met Isaac, but was very impressed with the young man as we met for the first time at Vermont Food Ventures. He was very polite and stood by quietly as David and I chatted away and I asked a number of questions regarding how the pie was made, what the ingredients were in the pie, along with some other things that certainly would not have made a very good story, but were of a lot of interest to me. After I got done with my nonsense, then Isacc got down to business and started asking David some intelligent questions and taking a few notes. While he was doing this, I decided to go and talk with the two pastry chefs, Laura Nedich and Jay Goude who both live in Burlington and work part time for David Barash.

Laura Nedich and Jay Goude, pastry chefs operate the pie crust making machine.

Laura Nedich, who by the way I kept calling Martha for some strange reason told me when I got there that she had a couple of pies in the oven baking. Right then and there my eyes lit up as I could now smell the aroma of apple pies baking. Feeling no rush now that I knew it would be a while, as I certainly wasn't going to leave before tasting those pies, I chatted with the two chefs for some time. Laura showed me something that looks like an orange cement mixer that when they use frozen apples, they let them thaw a little then tumble them in this machine. They also have what looks like an enormous Kitchen Aid mixer to mix the crust.

Shown above is the press used to shape the crust from the ball shown in Jay's hand. Each crust is pre-meausred, then weighed so they will be equal. The formed crust is placed on saran wrap, two on each one and placed in the rack seen in the back then in the cooler.

Jay watches after placing the next ball of crust that will move forward and be pressed to make the second crust before it is placed on the rack behind Laura.

Individual balls of crust in a plastic bag that have recently been removed from the cooler that will soon become formed pie crust.

Several of the large bags of cut Cabot butter that will be used to make more crusts.

After numerous attempts to get Jay to complain about his job, shown at left, I gave up, as he had nothing but positive things to say. Brian Norder, Project Director for Vermont Food Ventures stands in the background, and of course poor Laura who I was constantly calling Martha smile for me. I told Laura that I must be confusing her with Martha Stewart, which then made me remember her real name after that. Meanwhile, of course while I was fooling around, Isaac and David were busy getting facts down for a story that should be appearing in the St. Albans Messenger in the near future.

Now for those of you that know me, you are probably wondering, "What in heck is he wearing that hair net for?? and for those of you that don't, you can probably see through that hair net and be wondering the same thing. Oh yes!!!, Laura informed us that the pie was done and in the photo above you see Dave and I holding the pie. I thought now it won't be long and I can sample the pie. Laura informed us that it had to cool a little more, even though as you can see, I was holding up my side with my bare hands.

Yup, the time has come, notice that the mouth is ready, but those old hands just can't move fast enough.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!! that's good pie - I suppose I could say, "Wish you were here," but that thought never crossed my mind at that moment.

Well, believe it or not, I was invited back as unfortunately they were only doing the crust today, but they will be putting the pies together with the apples on Wednesday. Laura, throw a couple of pies in the oven and I'll see you on Wednesday.

The Vermont Mystic Pie Company has its own web site at:

http://www.vermontmysticpie.com/

You may also check out Vermont Food Venture Center at:

http://www.edcnv.org

And Isaac Olson I'm sure will have a great story in the Messenger for you and I'll try to let you know when it appears.

Have a great day, I did -- Henry