Let Them Eat Cake (or Pie)

One delicious part of life in our area is the yearly "Best Pie and Cake Competion". In autumn, the air is fresh, the leaves are in full colour and baking begins...local residents filling their freezers for the long winter. Country people are well known for their baking, using the freshest produce right from their gardens; apples, berries and pumpkins in their creations. Competition is stiff, and long-resident grannies who clean up year after year are now being given a run by their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Husbands and fathers who would seem more at home with John Deere than Viking, have surprisingly spectacular entries of their own. The abundance of local baking talent leaves one unanswered question, "Who is left to judge"?

My reputation as a much-pitied member of the non-baking brigade precedes me and I am asked to help out. The grannies nod knowingly, silently measuring my abilities to judge their work when I myself could not deliver the goods. I may as well have had two heads and been dressed in Scarlet O'Hara draperies by the way they peered at me from above their pushed down bifocals. Little did they know I was more than qualified to judge; I loved all pie and cake equally. Many years of tasting I had under my belt. I played no favourites, shunned no tarts (not even the mincemeat) and gave all cheesecakes the awe and respect they deserved. Bring it on, here come the judge!