9th Square Goes Pie Crazy For An Evening

For Laurel Underwood-Price, the secret to starting a pie was remembering her grandmother, whose soft and spectral hand seemed to guide her to a jar of year-old peaches preserved in spice and brandy. In the spirit of his autumnal food drive at the Connecticut Food Bank, James N. Trimble opted for a caramel apple crumb recipe, conjuring magic as he stirred butter, sugar, and half-and-half over the stove. Linda Hubler took a bag of peaches and a cup of sugar as a chance to bond with her 13-year-old daughter. Elise Dunphe saw it as a reason to celebrate her own summer bounty … and a Connecticut culinary family she’d come to love fiercely.

For them and others Friday evening, a timeless sense of family pervaded every aspect of Pie On9, a collaboration between the Town Green Special Services District and CitySeed that raised money for the latter organization’s Double Value Food Stamp program. Now in its third year, Pie On9 is becoming a popular annual tradition, beginning with a multi-hour closure of Orange Street and submission of almost 200 pies and ending with full bellies and fuller smiles. Despite the conspicuous absences of (recently closed) Bentara and 9th Note from the first Friday festivities, the event drew a few hundred New Haveners, each making a mad dash to the pie booth — and some to the pie-themed drink booth — with small paper plates in hand.

“Seeing people eating, happy, seeing everything set up — this is the type of community event that we’re most proud to be a part of. That it goes towards funding for such a critical program … it’s a win-win-win for everybody,” said Nicole Berube, Executive Director at CitySeed. Just outside, a panel of judges devoured entries that ranged from pizza pie — a new and welcome category — to robust galettes to sweet and creamy concoctions.

Having grown up with a grandmother who exhorted the nutritious values of mohnkuchen and rhubarb pie, I know this much to be true: Making, sharing, and eating pie is ritualistic in a way that nothing else is. Cutting and crimping the perfect pâte brisée is a deeply meditative act; filling it seems best when filtered through memories past and present. When I moved to New Haven for a job two years ago, making pies with summer peaches and a mess of leftover wine and rosemary (just trust me on that one) defined my anxious attempts to make friends, and I often felt like my grandmother was there, instructing me to add a pinch of sea salt, a teaspoon of brown sugar, an extra peach.

It turns out I’m not alone. ​“It is definitely a family affair,” said Underwood-Price, who entered peach-and-blueberry and strawberry rhubarb pies into the contest. ​“My grandma, who passed away a few years ago, would grow rhubarb in her garden. She made the best pies. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better pie than she’s made. It goes deep.”

“Baking and cooking in general, using everything from the garden, is something I just grew up doing. We always can pickle, bake, freeze, use everything that comes out of the garden. Finding different ways to use up ingredients is always good, and I just love feeding people,” added Dunphe, whose rustic, Jarlsberg-kissed cherry tomato and thyme pie with community-farmed ingredients took the prizes for best savory and ​“most fabulous pie” of the evening. 

As the prizes were announced one by one, community members popped out of the woodwork, bringing her words to life. For her apple-blackberry pie, Charlotte Ciccarelli became the face of New Haven’s brightest adolescent cooks. Emily Barnes‘ lemon-blueberry pie stole the prize for most beautiful — even though no one had seen it before the judges devoured it. Eric Rowe pulled a trump card with his ​“not New Haven style” deep-dish pizza pie, blowing Doug Hausladen’s transit socks off at the end of a long week. There were raw pies, fruit pies, unconventional pies, custard-filled pies, and dairy-refuting pies …

… and of course the winning pie.

There were also pint-sized pie aficionados …

And grown up ones …

… all celebrating the ritual of pie making in the community. One of them was Baobab Studios’ Kevin Ewing, who found the night a huge cause for celebration.

“Pie On9 is really not about the pie,” he said at the end of the night, as Tim Cabral and Tom Sobocinski packed up their pie-themed drinks behind him. ​“It’s about bringing people together. It’s about sharing your gifts, your talents, your flavors, your tastes … in this wonderful neighborhood to have a great time. If I can mix metaphors, the pies are just icing on the cake.”