Thursday 26 June 2014

13 Things a Pie Can Do to be More Attractive






You are probably all to aware of the many, many articles on the net and in print that instruct a woman how to be better, usually for reasons of pleasing a man. A lot of these are written and phrased in fun friendly ways; they just want to help you! Who doesn't want to be a better person after all?!
Some of them however, are written by angry middle aged white guys with some very definite ideas about women. They are aggressive, condescending and of course, deeply misogynistic. I could link to the specific 'article' that inspired this post, but I shan't. If you want to give that page views and read it for yourself, Google it. I'll give you a hint, just replace the word pie with woman. You won't be short of search results.

1) Stay 'healthy'
A good pie will be neither too fatty nor lacking in the things that taste good. Nobody wants a pie that is one of those 'super lean, fat free, health' pies, but we don't want to be dating lumpy starch and fat pie either. Be careful when choosing ingredients though, no body should now you were considering this careful balance. Just make it work.

2) Lay of the pie decoration
Pie eaters gravitate toward a natural pie crust, tasteful and coverable patterns (if any at all) and latticework that isn't out of control and all over the place.

3) Provide your own flavour
When it comes to flavour, pie eaters couldn't care less if you have a whole lot, but you need to have enough that they don't use up all their syrup. If you are more flavourful than their syrup, great, just refrain from rubbing yourself in their face. Nobody wants to be called pieface.

4) Be PIE
Pie eaters like PIE, not cake with a crust.

5) Be easy to eat
This overlaps with being PIE. Some people think of being easy to eat as a negative, like you will just be eaten up quickly with no thought or consideration. Heaven forbid you make yourself easy to eat so as to please the pie eater. Personally I think some peoples views on PIE have made eating pie a battle. Make yourself into bite size morsels, give him a surprise flavour, don't have a filling that gets everywhere. A Good pie eater will let you know they are pleased with your efforts.

6) Your availability
A pie eater wants a pie that has clearly been taste tested and is known to be tasty, but they don't want a pie that is available in every corner shop. We get it, you want everybody to be able to taste your filling and think you have a right to be eaten anywhere. Remember though, there's a difference between being gourmet and 4 for a pound.

7) Be clever
No pie eater wants a pie that can't show of a clever technique or two.

8) Be fresh!
This is kind of the not-so-secret secret. Pie eaters don't want left over pie, nor do they want the ultimate pie shame of eating another pie's filling. This goes double if the leftovers are from more than one pie or are bi-flavoured. It doesn't matter why there were leftovers the bottom line is, you have leftovers and it doesn't belong to any of the 'elligable' pie eaters out there.

Fun Fact!: In many pie eateries, if you like the leftovers, and then try to leave, they will make you pay the bill anyway!

9) You should be home baked most of the time.
Apparently the domesticity of being able to feed somebody has deteriorated. Don't be a store bought or frozen pie.

10) Put down the gadgets
We don't need any of this new technology. Step away from the digital thermometers, electric blenders and food blogs. A good pie knows when to sit quietly and politely. You definitely don't need to show off another photograph of your delicious crust. When I got to a bakery with other pie eaters, We all place our gadgets in a neat pile on the counter and pretend for a moment we are in a Ye Olde Pie Shop.

11) Easy up on the glaze and food colour!
It's bad enough that the egg glaze and food dye industry is a billion dollar industry hell bent on telling pies they aren't good enough. To top it off most of you come out looking like a joke pie! Maybe you could go without glaze and just try and do an appealing shiny crust naturally.

12) Stop being rough
Coming from somebody who is a United States Baker, It is really not attractive to have a pie that looks like it just came off a boat. Smooth off those edges if you really want to be a pie.

13) Stop having pie eating friends.
9 out of 10 of your pie eating friends just want to eat you anyway. Pie eaters now how other pie eaters think. The first one to come and comfort you after I've questioned your flavour will also be the one to say 'he doesn't really like cherries.' in order to sabotage my chances of eating you. And then he'll be the first one to take a dessert fork to you. It's not about trust. It's about me getting the pie I want.

Well that got creepy. And now I'm hungry.