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Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 19: Pies Are My Weakness

Posted by Ed Levine, May 23, 2008 at 8:30 AM

I forgot my scale (I was going to throw it into my duffel bag when we left the house on Wednesday), so I'm afraid there will be no moment of reckoning, no not-so-high drama, in my diet post this week. We have been up on Martha's Vineyard for two days now, and I must say my diet challenges up here are great, so there's plenty to write about and report on.

I have been coming to the Vineyard for more than thirty years now, and I have battled my addiction to pie for at least that long. Check that. I think my mother must have been addicted to pie, so she gave birth to a pie-addicted son more than fifty years ago. Over half a century of a craving for pie that has gone on unabated.

The problem is that Martha's Vineyard happens to be awash with pies. No matter what direction I drive in, no matter what town I head for up here, I pass at least a passable pie emporium. There's Garcia's Deli in back of Alley's General Store, the Chilmark Store in Chilmark, Morning Glory Farm and Just Pie in Edgartown, Black Dog Bakery and the Scottish Bakehouse in Vineyard Haven, The Old Stone Bakery and Little Rock Farms in Oak Bluffs, and many more pie establishments that I won't bore you with by listing. Anyway, you get the picture. Martha's Vineyard is pie central.

But the place I find it practically impossible to drive by without stopping is Mrs. Blake's Pies in Tisbury. Mrs. Blake makes an impossibly flaky double-crusted pie that I find irresistible, and that's why I find myself in a pie-dicament every time I come to Martha's Vineyard.

The siren call of her pies is so alluring, so overwhelming, that when I go by the humble stand that her husband mans in front of their modest house I want to scream like the character in the Edward Munch painting of the same name.

My problem with Mrs. Blake's is exacerbated by its location. I have to drive by Mrs. Blake's just about every time I need anything on the island. Trips to the grocery store, the pharmacy, and the closest produce and cheese store all require driving past Mrs. Blake's.

So I am pleased to report that I have driven past Mrs. Blake's at least a half dozen times in the two days we have been here, and I haven't stopped yet. Which is a very good thing, because I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to pie in general, and Mrs. Blake's pie in particular. I find it impossible to buy a Mrs. Blake's pie and eat just one slice. If she made individual serving pies like many other pie bakers do these days that would make it much easier. But until then, like any other addict, I have to deal with sweaty palms and the shakes every time I drive past Mrs. Blake's.

My pie addiction is an on-going problem, and it will continue to be as long as there are folks like Mrs. Blake on this earth tempting me with her impossibly flaky double-crusted pies. But with the help of serious eaters everywhere I may be able to prevail. Because I have met the enemy, and it is pie.

6 Comments | Tags: Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Mrs. Blake's Pies, pies