Here is my quest! I set out to find the best strawberry rhubarb pie in southern NH.  It’s a tough job, I know, but someone has to do it!  What are my judging standards, you might wonder?  Well, with all sincerity I will tell you that is has to measure up and even surpass the pies my mom baked, and taught me to bake and I am unabashed to tell you that I make a very ‘mean’ pie!  But aren’t we all looking for our mom’s ‘apple pie’ and though we may know how to bake them, we are hard pressed to find the time or energy in our busy lives…except perhaps at holidays.  But even then, pies go flying out the door of bakery and grocery stores alike.  I am a ’pie girl’ and an avid pie chaser.  It’s a fun sport that needs to be followed up with daily hula hooping!   Last winter I had a strange flu like disease which I labelled ‘pie sickness’ because I could only eat pie for two weeks.  Nothing else would my stomach bear.  It got a bit costly, as I ran to Hannaford every other day for another apple pie.  If I had felt better, I could have gone farther afield,  but it did start me out on my pie wanderings as I regained my good health.  So here I am today to tell you about my results in so far…and I will update as I find more samples to choose from.  In the lead is Concord food co-op’s strawberry rhubarb pie.  Before purchasing, I asked the baker if this was an amazing pie and without hesitation she assured me that is was super, fantastically amazing!  The price was $16 which seemed reasonable for an ‘out of this world’ pie so I brought one home.  I should say my friend and I brought one home because I felt I needed pie back-up.  One can’t eat an entire pie alone unless suffering from ’pie sickness’!  The first taste of this pie brought me back to my childhood…waiting patiently for the rhubarb stalks to mature, pulling off the broad green leaf and plopping it on my head as a sunhat and sitting with my besties savoring that sourness that children seem to crave.  (Green apples, sour grass, and rhubarb kept our summer adventures well fed.) The crust was light and flaky, maybe better than mine, and the filling was full of identifiable pieces of rhubarb, baked to perfection.  This pie could not have held more fruit!  Not too sweet, not too sticky, and amazing homemade flavor.  A true 'blue ribbon' pie!  Also, pretty as a picture and I think perhaps a pie bird had something to do with that.  Last week I didn’t know what a pie bird was…   How is it possible that someone who has baked pies for 50 years has not heard of a pie bird?!  I showed my mom my new little vintage collection as she had not heard of pie birds either.  There is still much to uncover …and I shall!  Good pie for now! Xo

P.S.  I guess I should have posted a picture of this beautiful pie but was too busy demolishing it to think much beyond that act.  So instead I bring you sweet little pie birds!