The Sweatshop of Love Blog

Once upon a time I was eating pie and I thought, ‘You really don’t need to eat anything but pie.’ It’s true. Everything is better in pie form. Everything is better with pie. Somehow that thought turned into Pieapalooza! The date: July 3rd, a Friday that pretty much everyone had off because of the holiday. The request? Bring a pie paired with a cocktail! I cooked up this coconut cream pie (who knew it was so easy to make coconut cream pie? It is no bake, you just throw some stuff together in a saucepan, heat, make up a pie crust, pour the coconut mixture in the crust and cool it in the fridge. Spread whip cream, sprinkle with toasted coconut, serve) to be served with coconut rum and cokes. Cute, right?

Kasia and Anders thought we should eat real food first, so we met a few hours before Pieapalooza! was scheduled to start and grilled.

Kasia picked up these toferkey brats, which I’ve never had before but really enjoyed! I never really liked those Bocca brats, I don’t think they make them anymore. They were always really dry. But this was great! I topped it with sauerkraut, mustard, and ketchup, like pretty much everyone else did.

I, of course, had my brain on pie. My coconut cream pie and Chris and Anne’s Jewel strawberry rhubarb pie (don’t judge; Emeril’s strawberry pie recipe was total crap so this was a last minute grab) were just sitting on the blanket, screaming at me, ‘Eat! Eat! I’m so good!’

Kasia and Anders made the most amazing cherry pie I have ever eaten. And that is saying a lot considering I’m from Michigan and we take our cherries very serious. This was a sweet cherry pie in the same amazing crust her strawberry rhubarb was in last week.

Tally:

1 piece strawberry rhubarb/champagne
1 piece cherry/cherry lemonade
1 piece coconut cream pie/coconut rum and coke

We were barely recovered from the first round when in came more!

1 piece lemon pie/summer shandy
1 piece peach pie

A couple pieces pi(e) – neapple (clever, and a welcomed break).

I couldn’t eat this one, but it’s so pretty! And patriotic. And this was the only pie that was eaten completely so it must have been great. Or people just felt they needed some protein.

This beauty is a drag queen pie, or raspberry lemonade pie, frozen and like sherbet! It was fun and pretty and tart as hell!

1 piece drag queen pie/2 vodka tonics (… they were good)

Between the eating and the drinking and the frisbee-ing, there was a lot of knitting going on. I was a proud mama! Gil finished up her fabric knit bag which turned out so cute! Her bf Martin picked up some knitting skills with this bag, so he gets credit, too.

Tara bound off the bottom of her sweater! It looks so cute. See the admirers behind her? Today in Sweater Club she finished a sleeve, so this sweater is really close to being done.

We made a mess. There were tiny plates and tiny cups everywhere, people had their hands and forks in pie remnants between laying down quiet time. We would play a little frisbee to make room for more pie.

I was trying not to keep track of the pie I ate on Friday, and I was trying not to add it up afterward. There is nothing I can do about it, all that pie was eaten, there is no use worrying about calories. Thanks to this post, though, I know I ate six pieces of pie and had six drinks. How I’m still alive I’m not quite sure, but we all made it through Pieapalooza! with tales to tell. Pieapalooza! is totally going to be a thing now! Because who wouldn’t want to sit around eating pie and drinking all afternoon?

However, it is not going to happen again any time soon. The party wrapped up around 7 and if the Tigers wouldn’t have gone into extra innings I would have been asleep by 9:30. The Tigers kept me up with a sad, bloaty tummy till after midnight. The whole time I was thinking about how pissed I’d be if they ended up losing and I could have been sleeping it off instead of awake and in pain. It was totally worth it! But seriously I don’t want to be in that kind of pain again for a long time.

Like, a week at least.