Pie in the Sky
Monday, May 30, 2011 at 1:19PM The Sterns co-owned a couple of restaurants in Manhattan back in the 1970s. But after the restaurant partnership fell apart in 1978, Nancy and John found themselves desperate. They had absolutely no income and had to scramble and reinvent themselves in order to survive.
Nancy packed a picnic basket with a chocolate fudge pie and an apple pie she baked and set ventured out to sell them. She sold all pies to neighborhood restaurants and came home with orders for a bunch more. Pie in the Sky was born. They were soon working long hours, starting at one in the afternoon and finishing between two and three in the morning. This is how they began catering to twelve New York restaurants thirty years ago.
They moved up to Maine in 1981 to live a different lifestyle. They bought a house that was a former grocery store. Their son Jesse was only three and my husband Brad was the same age. They soon became great friends. In fact, Brad mentions Jesse a lot in his childhood videos. One of my favorite is a video from 1988 where Brad opens his last Christmas present and then announces: "Jesse got baseball cards for Christmas, that sounds good for next year".
The Stern family continues to use AA unsalted butter, no preservatives, no transfats, and lots of hard labor to make these wonderful pies.
Nancy decorated her kitchen window with cute little flowers.
I had more than my fair share of their pies in the last couple of days. In fact, I pretty much lived on them. That's how good they are.
Besides pies, the Sterns bake other goodies, such as cookies and blondies.
One of their Yelp reviews says "The guy behind the counter wasn't very friendly either." I think it is clear who was behind the counter that day. It must have been Jesse. ;)
I wish Sterns a lot of cold weather. John mentioned pies sell fast when the weather gets bad. :)
Reader Comments (1)
This is heaven! I really love pies, I wish there is a store like here in my place.