THE PIE SOCIALIST

Tomorrow is President’s Day and 2024 is a pivotal presidential election year. Warning: I’m about to get PIE-litical.

A baker’s dozen years ago, I posted a blog entry on President’s Day featuring a quote from our then president Barack Obama.

"You like pie? I like pie."

Though I didn’t see eye to eye with the man, at least we saw pie to pie.

If you do an internet search for “Obama Pie”, you’ll find links galore touting Obama’s love of pie. One website in particular tickled my fancy. “Cookin’ With Congress” has a guffaw inducing headline and snark-filled phrases peppered throughout the site. The recipes featured are actual recipes from politicians past and present and the accompanying commentary is laced with a hefty dose of sarcasm.

That entertaining website inspired me to once again presidentially address the topic of pies. But I cannot tell a lie. I did not bake a cherry pie in honor of George Washington’s proverbial cherry tree myth which would have been apropos. I searched for the perfect presidential pie recipe that would TRUMP them all but alas, none of them earned my vote. So for now I’ll just be BIDEN my time until a likely candidate appears. Once that nominee has been determined, you may cast your ballot, but only in person!

This being a contentious election year, I recall a particular pie social I hosted which boasted a varied and politically charged guest list. Our town's House Representative and his wife were invited along with a couple of friends whose political views fell on the opposite side of the spectrum. If I had "left" them off the guest list, would that have been "right"? My debate-loving husband appreciated the fact that I didn’t invite only ditto-heads. How boring would that be? And for heaven's sake, the whole house would have tipped "right" over! Nonetheless, I worried that mixing pie and politics would prove a sure recipe for disaster.

As the afternoon progressed, we all graciously put a conservative lid on our opinions and added a liberal dose of gracious understanding. We made an effort to find common ground and discovered that pies can be the ties that bind. Pie could very well be the mediating force between the right and the left where we all meet in the middle. And let's be as honest as Abe here. We'll all probably expand in the middle as well!

Speaking of presidents, politics and pie, I found an interesting tidbit about John Tyler, our 10th president who had a pie named after him. President Tyler loved pudding. His economical recipe, dubbed Tyler Pie, consisted of minimal ingredients for a caramel pudding encased in a simple pastry crust. It was often served to his hungry, bustling brood of fourteen children. I am warmed by the thought of his large family gathered around the dinner table, forks clanging, conversation buzzing, and slices of pie nourishing both bodies and souls of a tight-knit family.

One hundred and forty years later, Ronald Reagan hearkened back to the power of regularly gathering around the table. "All great change in America begins at the dinner table." I plan to open my home and host pie socials as part of my 50-pie resolution. I love to plan big theme parties but through the years I’ve come to reevaluate the Herculean effort involved. And though I thoroughly enjoy those parties from start to finish, I've become discouraged that my invitations aren't reciprocated. Perhaps an unpretentious pie social will help shift my focus on what really matters – gathering people together for genuine connection which just might encourage reciprocation.

President George W. Bush once (not so eloquently!) declared, “We ought to make the pie higher.” Whatever he meant, I’ll personally apply his directive and answering to a higher calling by practicing hospitality via pie socials. It's high time we return to our humble roots and communicate as our forefathers did, in person over slices of delicious homemade pie.

I look forward to planning pie socials. And as a freedom-loving conservative, feel free to call me a socialist - a PIE SOCIAL-IST, that is. Let's all socialize and eat pie and maybe get as big as President Taft, because I like pie and you like pie and in a pie society, everyone sees eye to eye.