March meeting

Hi all,

Just to let you know that our meeting planned for 6th March is now fully booked. Well done if you got a place.

You can still apply to our standby list so we can let you know if anyone drops out. If you have applied for a place but then you realise you can't make it, please do let us know as soon as possible, so we can give someone else the chance of coming along.

Looking forward to eating huge amounts of Great British Pie!

For more info on Great British Pie Week, get yourself over to this website. There's some great recipes, hints and tips, and the Pub Pie competition.

See you there!

Hayley xxx

Pie-lotics

Here at Private Pie we are all about democracy.

And one thing that we realised was that our little Pie-Dude needed a name.

Pie-Dude needed a name!

So we thought, how can we make a fair decision on what to call this little dude?

Well, the obvious way to us at least was Democracy by Baking Bead. Each of our bakers and their guests were given a baking bead each with which to vote on the Pie-Dude's name. We had a shortlist of four names, which were chosen by an esteemed panel of judges. These were: Albert, Cedric, Pi-curion, and Pepe.

And lo, the people cast their votes and the winner was:
.....
.....
*pause for dramatic effect*
.....
.....

Cedric.

*happy inspirational music, probably by Snow Patrol over montages of pie-dude doing his thing*


So there we have it. The Pie People have spoken and Pie Dude now has a name.

Our Second Meeting

Well hello there, pie fans.

Our second meeting was a great success. We had 20 lovely, friendly, amazing Private Pie People come along and we really hope that everyone had a blast.

I find that in the run-up to the meetings I get terribly nervous, but as soon as I'm there the excitement sets in and i get very hyper and high-pitched. Especially so when we saw the amazing venue- The Secret Cinema Room at The Town Wall. We at Private Pie are great fans of this cosy pub, which has a great selection of beers and ales, and a delicious menu. Their Scotch eggs are to die for, and I'm always a sucker for a posh fish finger sandwich.

Our wild hog friend was getting in the pie club spirit

The bar of the Secret Cinema room

So, despite being in a cloud of excitement, and with a little bit of help from our friends, we set up, and waited for our pie bakers to arrive. And some pie turned up. And then some more pie, and then some more pie etc...

In total, we had 12 delicious pies, and an even mix between sweet and savoury. I actually tasted all of them, and believe me, they were just as good as they looked. I've since been asked many times "What was your favourite?" and i've genuinely really struggled with that question- i've no idea as they were all truly delicious. And judging by how quickly all the pies went, everyone thought the same. It seems us Geordies are able to eat an inordinate amount of pie- much less was left over than usually is at Clandestine Cake Club, for example.

The pies await their ultimate fate

Then, just as everyone had finished off their sweet pies, Mike and Jonny from the New Zealand Gourmet Pie Company came along, bearing more, piping hot, delicious pies from their range and bringing with them their pie-based wisdom. Mike did an entertaining guest speaking spot, whilst everyone nursed their full bellies. But, of course, despite the fullness, we simply HAD to try some of those gorgeous pies. We can HIGHLY commend their range of handheld pies, and we think we'll be organizing a Friday Pie-day at our workplace soon.

For more pictures of the event, have a gander at our Facebook page. If you were at our meeting and you have any pictures you don't mind sharing, I'd be really grateful if you could email us them at privatepieclub@gmail.com. It seems that a new tradition is that my camera always breaks two minutes into pie club as the same thing happened last time- maybe it has a pastry intolerance. Or maybe i just should have changed the batteries :S.

Many thanks to Amy for letting us use her photos. And Hyoooooge thanks to all of our wonderful bakers and guests who could attend the meeting.

Much love,

Hayley xxx