Dangerous Pies is a journal entry by Jack Rusher, published here Saturday, July 19, 2003. It is part of Appreciation.
Tell ’em Jack sent you.
They said they had Dangerously Delicious Pies, and they weren’t kidding. We went down there — my wife, my friend the professional food critic and I did — into a seedy part of town: east Baltimore. It’s not a restaurant, and it certainly isn’t a café — it’s a pie joint. The decor is leopard print and 50’s kitsch, there’s nothing in there but a couple of tables and two big cases of freshly baked pies.
Rodney, the pie baker and shop owner, is the front man for a rockabilly band called the Glenmont Popes, but I didn’t know that until we got there. I recognized him from shared gigs in Florida and shared drinking at Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub. The world got a little bit smaller as we talked about people we knew at different clubs on the eastern seaboard.
We took three slices right away and I had a fourth after we’d finished: apple, blueberry-strawberry-rhubarb, lemon and peach. They were all good, but the peach was fantastic. All the fruit was bought the morning the pies were made, all the pies full of sugar and lard. These are grandma’s own all American pies; we took one home.
If you ever want a wholesome slice of pie served by a tattooed rocker who learned to bake from his grandmother, stop by and tell him Jack sent you.