what a pie party it was.

All throughout the day, I’ve been looking at photographs of pie.

It’s not a bad way to spend a day, actually.

A few weeks ago, when this crazy idea of a virtual pie party arose, I thought a few dozen people I know might join in. The idea of friends in other places making pie in their kitchens at the same time I was shaping soft dough into a disk? It made me happy. However, I didn’t anticipate this.

Folks, over 1500 people signed up to make pie. They baked all around the world — the East Coast of the US, Hawaii (where 30 people brought their pies to a meet-up and not one of them repeated kinds of pies), Great Britain, France, Italy, and even India. Over the world, in cozy kitchens with countertops covered in flour, people baked pies.

I cannot tell you how happy this makes me.

Mostly, it was the joy I read in people’s Twitter messages and Facebook updates and blog posts: I made pie. There were first-time pie makers (some of them were daring enough to make lattice crusts!), first-time gluten-free pie makers, and experienced hands. These good folks made strawberry-rhubarb pie, raspberry cheesecake pie, blackberry hand pie, savory mushroom pie, cinnamon apple pie, blueberry-mango pie, tomato-bacon pie, sweet grits pie, blueberry-peach pie, tequila-peach pie, blood orange lemon vanilla infused shaker pie, mixed berry and lemon verbena pie, key lime pie with vanilla whipped cream, and bourbon caramel peach pie. And about 1000 more. There were vegan pies, nut-free pie, dairy-free pies, and certainly plenty of gluten-free pies.

Every one of them looked delicious.

We celebrated Pie Party day by making pie. (That is, when I wasn’t on Twitter or Facebook, talking about pie and RTing people’s links about pie.) Our good friend Tamiko came over this morning with her darling daughters, and Lu’s best friend, Zea, came over for the day. (The little daycare Lu and Zea go to is closed this week for the Fourth of July celebrations.) So we had a two-year-old (about to be three), two three-year-olds, and one six-year-old, who is a little shy, and all of them exhausted after staying up too late for the fireworks last night. We threw open all the windows and doors in the house, turned on some groovy music from the 70s, and rocked the chaos.

Tamiko told me that she made pie once. Once. But she was so traumatized by the tough, crackery crust she produced that she had never made a pie again.

Well, of course, I wanted to change that.

“Making a pie is really an emotional experience,” I told her. “It’s about paying attention and feeling relaxed and listening to the pie sizzle in the oven and knowing when it’s done.” And so, we set up the filling for two pies: blueberry-thyme pie (inspired by Garrett) and an apricot-cardamom-ginger pie. As the girls requested that books be read or a plate of pasta or more water or help with getting dress-up clothes over their heads or whether or not they could go outside or held back tears when they felt someone was ignoring them or broke into song and a game of London Bridges or ran through the house naked or needed naps, Tamiko and I spilled sugar onto ripe fruit and cut butter into small cubes. Thank goodness for Danny, who was willing to wrangle as much as he could, so the two of us could focus on our pies.

The first crust was too soft — we didn’t wait long enough for the butter to fully chill. “This isn’t what you want,” I told Tamiko, as I scraped the dough off the waxed paper with my fingers and patted it into the pan. “But it’s still going to be good. It’s still going to be pie.” I showed her how to pulse the food processor, then how to make a pie dough by hand by massaging the cold butter with her thumbs so the flour was coated with the fat. Tamiko watched, quiet, then tried it herself. I made her try it. You have to put your hands into pie dough if you want to make pie. And then you have to practice, a lot.

Both pies looked lovely in the making, the fruit glistening with honey and cinnamon, little flecks of thyme, and fresh ginger. The smell of them matched the smell of summer wafting through the doors. Tamiko and the girls had to leave to catch a ferry, so they didn’t see the pies emerge from the oven, warm and golden, fruit burbling up through the vents. I’m pretty sure, however, that Tamiko left far more relaxed about pie than when she walked in the door. I’m hoping she’s making one of her own soon.

And that, my friends, was really the only point of the pie party: to make pie. To relax, to gather friends and family, to talk and laugh while cutting up the fruit, to listen to the children singing in the other room, or let them stand on chairs and put their hands into the dough too, to be happy while making something that makes everyone happy, to grow the patience to wait for the pies to emerge from the oven, and find even more patience for them to cool. And then, to share.

Pie is meant to be shared.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the pie party. I wish that I had the time and energy to round up every single post here, all 1500 of them. I don’t, especially because it’s late now, and I still haven’t eaten a slice of either of those pies.

However, you really, really should check out the pies.

Take a look at the Pie Party event page on Facebook, where hundreds of people left links to their blogs or Flickr pictures.

On Twitter, look for the hashtag #pieparty. (Also, some folks used the hashtag #pieday, so take a look at that one too.)

I’d love to see links to your blogs and pie recipes in the comments here. Let this be a repository for pie-making joy.

Thank you, everyone. What a joy it was.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go have a piece of pie.

p.s. Because the pie party was such a joyful success, we’re having another party in August: a pickling party. Come on over here to see the details. Then, mark your calendars: August 10^th.