Easy as Pie
BY MICHELLE BLANCHARD ARDILLO
etween Halloween and late
December, internet food sites
buzz with searches for two of
the biggest food days of the year:
Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s not
all about turkey and sides, however.

According to the American Pie Council,
approximately $700 million in pies, or
about 186 million units, are sold in gro-
cery stores every year. This does not
include pies sold in restaurants, bakeries
and membership stores, such as Costco.

In fact, the pie council reports, if we
lined up the number of pies sold at U.S.

grocery stores in one year, they would
wrap around the globe and keep going.

That’s a lot of pie.

What makes pie one of America’s favor-
ite desserts, especially during the holiday
season? We asked four local pie producers.

Slice of Life
As soon as Maryland native and former
stay-at-home-dad Nic Romano dropped
his youngest child off at school for the fi rst
time this year, he headed out to a commer-
cial kitchen, where he rents the facility to
bake pies, bread and cookies, which he sells
wholesale and via the New Market Farmers’
Market twice a month. Baking seasonally,
he started with peach and apple three-inch
mini-pies, which were very successful. In
October, he switched to pumpkin, which he
makes using locally grown pumpkins.

“It is defi nitely worth the time and
eff ort to break down the fruit and prepare
it for baking,” he says.

He tries diff erent varieties that he fi nds
at local produce stands, but one favorite
is the Long Island Cheese, which is wider
and fl atter than the jack-o-lantern pump-
kins found everywhere in the fall. Its
lightly ribbed and pale-colored rind gives
it the appearance of a wheel of cheese,
thus the name.

Romano began his baking in the Navy.

At ports of call in Ireland, the Middle
East and the Mediterranean, he was able
to sample baked goods and specialties
of other cultures. After his service, he
worked in a college cafeteria and later at
Panera, baking bread through the night.

His Panera experience and a gift from a
friend of a sour dough starter helped him
create his own loaves, which he now sells
from his business, DaddyBoy Bake Shop.

PIE: PIE SISTERS; ROLLING PIN: GETTY IMAGES
18 Washington FAMILY
NOVEMBER 2019



The name comes from his 5-year-
old son, Daniel. Romano and his wife of
10 years, Lisa, have two other children,
Anna, 9, and Billy, 7. While Lisa focused
on her career, Romano was home with the
children, cooking and baking for his fam-
ily and preparing for this new business
venture. Facebook/DaddyBoy Bake Shop
Motherhood & Apple Pie
Founded in 1981, Mom’s Apple Pie is an
institution in Leesburg, Virginia, and it’s
all in the family. Avis Renshaw and her
husband, Steven Cox, run three retail
stores as well as Lost Corner Farm, where
they grow the fruits and produce used in
their pies. Their son, Tyson, works full
time on the farm and comes into the bak-
ery during the holiday season to help
out. Daughter Petra worked in the fam-
ily business for years and then opened
her own pie company in New York City,
Petee’s Pie Company, which has stores
in Manhattan and Brooklyn. And daugh-
ter Ansa lives on the farm and does the
bookkeeping for the business as well as
producing soups for the retail stores.

The pie business is year-round, accord-
ing to Renshaw, but the company does a
typical month’s worth of business com-
pressed into just three days around the
Thanksgiving holiday. Thousands of pies
are baked and sold from its three locations.

While the top four sellers during the
holidays are apple, apple crumb, pumpkin
and pecan, apple is still the most popu-
lar choice all year long. As the seasons
change, so do the pies. During strawberry
season on the farm, the stores sell fresh
strawberry pies. Then comes blackberry
pie, an open-faced pie that is very popular
and always sells out.

Recipes are tinkered with year to year to
accommodate changes in the produce that
is grown on the farm. Multiple varieties
of pumpkin and squash, such as butter-
nut squash, neck pumpkins and kabocha,
are mixed together to create the pump-
kin pie with the best flavor and texture.

For the company’s sweet potato pie, white
sweet potatoes, which are much sweeter,
are mixed with orange and red varieties
for the perfect filling. momsapplepieco.com
Pieces of the Pie
A childhood spent canning peaches
and baking pies with their mother
who “always baked everything” laid
the groundwork for three sisters to
become known as the Pie Sisters.

Opening their Georgetown shop in
2012, Allison, Erin and Catherine
Blakely went from having fun together
in the kitchen baking with their mom
to starting at 4 in the morning to bake
thousands of pies, all done by hand.

In the beginning, Allison focused on
crust, cutting the shortening or butter
into the flour with a fork, and Erin focused
on filling. They also made some decisions
that would set them apart from other
pie shops. Seeing the success of a local
cupcake shop and the growing trend of
smaller-sized baked goods, the Pie Sisters
Approximately $700 million in pies, or about
186 million units, are sold in grocery stores every year.

— AMERICAN PIE COUNCIL
Pie Sisters, from left: Erin, Catherine and Allison Blakely
Facing page: Pie Sisters’ pumpkin pie
PIES: ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS/KAMESHKOVA ; PIE SISTERS PROVIDED
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