The Pie On The Side Of The Road

It’s hard to imagine right now, sitting here at home, that only a few months ago, I would have given anything for a good, sweet pastry. There is something about going on vacation that sends our normal dietary habits away and sets free the spirit that wants all of the really good stuff that you usually tend to avoid.
Bakeries come to mind as the kind of place that I don’t spend much time in, but once on this vacation, that was the first place I was looking for in a new town. We landed in Portland, Maine and it wasn’t long before we found Two Fat Cats, an un-air-conditioned little old house in the shopping district of Old Port. Four very sweaty women were hard at work making dough and pastries and there was little doubt that what was for sale was made right there on the premises. I was already drooling before our turn at the counter came up, but I let the Missus do the talking because this place had the distinct appearance of a place that was by women, for women, and frequented by women. She got up to the counter, asking about freshness and instead of being insulted, the young woman offered samples. We bought way too much and a good portion of that never made it back to the car, but the one thing everyone wanted us to like was Woopee Pies. They never caught on with us and we could only hope that the guy that cleaned the rental car after we returned it, would appreciate our Woopee Pie tip.
The bar for bakery taste in New England was raised quite high by a chance stop on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We were cruising down a steep hill, returning from an afternoon of testing the limits of our GPS, when the Missus spotted a small wooden stand on the side of the road with pies sitting on it. That and a small lockbox was all that was in sight. We saw a house a little ways away from the road, and thought we needed to stop. A cute young woman was carrying a pie up the driveway from the house and we decided that we had to have a couple of those pies. It turned out that the young woman and her husband were baking pies and running the business for her mother. Little did I know at the time that I was in for some of the best dessert I would have for a very long time...all because of a chance stop in the middle of Nowhere, Maine..