AFL Thanksgiving Pie Contest Report

Like all good moms, Dorothy Letterman baked pies for her family at Thanksgiving. Lots of pies. To this day she still bakes pies. There's a difference now, though. Her pie baking gets national attention because of son Dave. Every year since 1993 he has had Mom on the Late Show with her pies, trying to link with her telepathically and divine which particular flavor she has decided to tempt her family's taste buds with.

Last year AFL decided to get in on the act in our own little way. While we don't have the telepathic link with Dorothy that Dave has, we certainly could make wild, outrageous guesses. As a bonus, I would bake a pie for whomever guessed the correct pies Dorothy made. So the guesses rolled in. In total, 38 guesses were made and James Langdell compiled them night of the big Broadcast. Dorothy baked two pies that day, Pumpkin and, a bit of a bombshell, Raspberry Chiffon. There wasn't a clear cut winner last year, but Eyeonletterman took the prize over all the pumpkin guessers for making the gusty call of Raspberry pie. Sadly, Eyeonletterman did not get a home made pie from me. She lives outside the US and it was decided the cost and customs problems would be too much. I sent her a lovely virtual pie as a consolation.

This year Helen, of charts and graphs fame, got appointed to run the contest. The prize was still the same, a home made pie from me, but now there was an actual website to make guesses instead of through AFL. This delighted the Donz to no end. With no pie guessing thread, valuable bandwidth would be preserved for political discussion.

So Helen and James hashed out the rules for determining a winner and the guesses once again rolled in. This year we had a total of 47 guesses (or 45 depending on Jame's mood) and four folks guessed the correct combination of Pumpkin and Apple. James threw their names into a hat and drew out the lucky winner, kmg365.

I contacted kmg35, known in the outside world as Linda, to make plans to get her pie to her. Turns out Linda is also from the Hoosierland and lives just minutes from my old neighborhood. I suggested that since I would be home for the Holidays, I would hand deliver the pie to her. She agreed and we made arrangements for the drop off.

Linda had decided she wanted an apple pie, so when I got home I headed over to the local co-op and purchased some beautiful, organic Granny Smith apples. The day after Christmas I whipped up a luscious, mouth watering pie at my Mom's house. The pie was tart and tangy with a lovely double crust. As I sat with my mom and grandmother (both pie-making goddesses in their own right) in the living room while the pie was cooling, surrounding us with the heavenly fragrance of apples and cinnamon, my mom asked if I really needed to deliver this pie and wouldn't it be better if we just ate it right now. No wonder pies only lasted only about 5 seconds in my house when I was a kid.

Well, I was able to keep my mother out of the pie and the next morning Carl and I headed to the New Haven Branch Library to present Linda her prize. Linda had a problem with being photographed, mumbling something about America's Most Wanted, but we still managed to get the pie presentation on film. It was quite the production and the library patrons were curious to say the least. Linda immediately made it clear that the pie was hers and no one, but no one, was getting any.

We chatted for a few minutes and found out Linda had only been on AFL for about 6 months, rarely posted, but enjoyed our little group. I encouraged her to keep reading and post when she could. We wished each other Happy New Year, I waved my pie-goddess wave to the curious on-lookers and Carl and I headed out.

Linda Emailed me with her verdict on the pie.......

Hi there!

Sorry for the delayed response. I'm still a little weak. The doctor said it was the worst case of food poisoning he'd ever seen.

Kidding. Really.

It was a mighty tasty pie, and a thing of beauty. (And, I must add, the *tallest* damn pie I've ever seen.) I had to fight my way out of the building with it--you know what a bunch of ne'er-do-wells those librarians are.

Thank you, third-generation Pie Goddess, for the freshly-baked treat. I still can't believe you delivered it in person. Finally, a "Brush With Greatness" story for Dave... too bad he stopped doing that bit about a decade ago...

Sincerely,
Linda
AFL Pie-Guessing Champion 2000