Teeny Pies

Remember when I went to Walden Pond the first time to find an expectant Thoreau with hand outstretched, ready to receive a teeny pie? I snapped iphone pictures with frivolity, never thinking I would have a book deal and therefore would have to deal with high resolution anything.

Remember when I went to Walden Pond the second time for the express purpose of taking high resolution photos of the same transcendental writer with a very fancy schmancy camera so that these delightful and charming photos would end up in my book, forever sealing my fate as an adorable-adventurous-pie-baker who bakes endearing-highly-photogenic-pies?

It would seem that my (Aaron’s) fancy schmancy camera was on the wrong setting. I had foolishly set the camera on the ‘high’ setting thinking that I would end up with ‘high’ resolution photos… oh my pie friends, I was wrong. It would seem that ‘raw’ was the correct camera setting.. as in underbaked… the dread of all pie bakers (and orderers of well done steaks) everywhere. Nonetheless, ‘raw’ is what I was looking for, and after a rather exhaustive conversation with an unhelpful Nikon customer service representative I figured out the correct way to take high resolution photos.

So, I was off to Walden Pond for the third (knock on wood, I don’t live here anymore, so I can’t come back) time. However, to keep my sanity as well as to not feel quite as judged as I walked around with a pint sized pastry, I brought a friend. I typed ‘Walden Pond’ into my phone, strapped my pies in the backseat, scooped up Erin, and we were off.

And do you know where my smarty-pants phone took us?? To a FAKE WALDEN POND. (the truth is, I should have known better… I’d been there twice before, after all… however, I trusted in technology and blah blah blah, I’m kind of an idiot but who would have thought there was going to be a FAKE WALDEN POND!!!!) 

We drove half an hour out of our way, finally made it to Thoreau’s Walden Pond (as opposed to Lynn’s FAKE walden pond… google it, the fake walden pond is real). The two previous times I’d been to this famous pond, the people had been relatively pleasant and while they may have been surprised to see a pie arrive on the scene, no one bothered me or pestered me with questions about it. 

This time was different. People were not pleasant and instead of keeping to themselves the few that did approach me were very aggressive about their need to understand why I had a pie and the audacity to take pictures of it. It was a million degrees outside, it was insanely muggy, we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, I’d just driven to FAKE WALDEN POND and all I wanted to do was take a few pictures without being approached by yet another person who began the conversation with, ‘I just have to ask…’ and ended it with, ‘that’s strange.’ 

Thank goodness I had Erin for company because people were dangerously close to getting pied (that’s a good old pie in the face, for those of you who may not know) and somehow, probably because of her quick wit and dry humor, I laughed all afternoon instead of fuming with rage and wasting perfectly good pastry on useless people. 

Walden part three… it happened. The most I can say is that I’ve gotten exceptionally good at pie balancing.