"PieCrafts" news and stories

Pie-making is a true expression of a cook's love: of ingredients, of process, of feeding hungry people something good to eat. For cooks, the pie is the hug, but how about a pie you can hug? We're way ahead of state fair blue-ribbon season, but in one shopfront at the venerable etsy they believe in being prepared for contests beyond pie-baking and pie-eating. Buggabug's shop features not just a menu but a feast of patterns for creating your own huggable food easily and inexpensively from felt.

The Blue Ribbon Pie collection features lemon meringue, cherry, pumpkin, even grasshopper. If that's not enough to satisfy your sweet tooth, try tea cakes, doughnuts, cupcakes, cinnamon rolls -- even a box of Valentine's day chocolates. A lumberjack's pancake breakfast will get your day going, and after the whistle blows, why not unwind with some Chinese take-out and a movie?

If you take a cup of tea with your pie, Martha Stewart shows you how to make adorable teacup pincussions. If your pie of choice is cherry, Martha has her take on that as well. So does Better Homes and Gardens, where embroiderers can try your hand at this cherry redwork pillow (free log-in required). Finally, yarn expressionists can try this cherry pie slice at craftbits.

All of these projects are simple to intermediate to accomplish. And if your favorite way of pie crafting is the old-fashioned one -- rolling out dough and lining a tin with it, tossing fruit with sugar and spices, artfully layering a top crust over the filling, and putting the whole thing into a hot oven -- then slashfood can help you with that. Though we're not averse to the crafts of cooking, our heart is still with the craft of cooking.