Film Pies- The Star and Shadow

My dear pie-lovers, this has been officially The Most Sorely Neglected blog in history. This is a reflection not on the quality of pie club meetings, but mainly on my terrible grasp of technology, bad luck with broken computers, and immense laziness.

Today, however, I want to tell you about the fantastic night we had last night at the Star and Shadow, and why we chose to go there.

The Venue:

I am in love with the Star and Shadow, and have been since the first time I went there. Its entirely volunteer run, and has an air of lovingly home made shabbiness which I just adore. The volunteers made it all happen, and built a gorgeous little cinema out of empty warehouse space. you can find out all about their work at their website, here. Its great work- they show all sorts of films, have some brilliant gigs, poetry readings, a library etc. What I love most of all is that they never turn people away: if people can't afford their ticket, they can pay what they can afford, and admission is free for some groups such as asylum seekers.

The Star and Shadow philosophy

Our hosts were incredible. They were so happy to have us there and bent over backwards to make us feel at home. In return, we presented them with a little certificate of having been the venue for our tenth meeting, and were delighted to see a step ladder being whipped out immediately to put it in pride of place over the bar.

The bar, by the way, is delightful. The staff were knowledgeable about the range of beer on sale, and there are lots of lovely non-alcoholic drinks too. We had the run of the place, and it was a perfect size to let everyone sit down to nurse their full bellies, with comfy sofas to sink into dotted about the place.

the lovely bar area at the Star and Shadow

 Our hosts even offered us a tour of the building. So, just as everyone was starting to feel the effects of the first wave of pie, we were whisked off behind the scenes. Our tour guide was super knowledgeable, and had lots of little stories to tell us about how the cinema was made, how the projector works, etc. We were shown the film dark room- only one of two places in the country where you can develop black and white film. By the end of the tour, I think everyone was just as enamoured by the place as I am- the passion of the volunteers for the place is really infectious.

Behind the Scenes at the Star and Shadow

The Theme:

We now have a theme suggestion box, and being a democratic sort of pie club, have started choosing our themes based on our members' suggestions. Film themed pies were suggested by a few of you, so of course we found the perfect venue for it.

What I love about this theme is how much conversation it has prompted. I know many of you guys have been talking about this- at a wedding of my friend, a large part of the conversation with various different people was about pie-film puns. My friends who work at the hospital said a load of nurses had really gotten into the idea, and she'd find herself walking down a ward and someone would leap out and say something like "The PieWho Loved Me!". Its been brilliant fun.

We have come to expect much ingenuity and tenuous links from our bakers when it comes to our themes. We were certainly not disappointed.

The Pies:

This wasn't even all the pies- more turned up after this photo was taken.

This is just a small selection of the beautiful pies that we sampled. Honestly, our bakers outdid themselves this time. I'll be uploading loads more pictures onto our Facebook page eventually, so head over there for more pie porn pics.

Fantastic pastry decoration from Jenni and Janis- our very own pastry Gru!

The Breakfast Club by Vicky and Sarah. This was a behemoth of breakfast delights, and it smelt unbelievable. The next time I have a hangover, I shall be dreaming of this. 

My personal favourite film pie pun, courtesy of Michael and Amy. This made me do a loud guffaw-hyterical laughter type noise when they told me what it was called.

My own Lady Vengeance pie: chocolate, tofu, strawberry mousse, meringue, and liberal application of glitter and "bloodstains"

Kate's Peanut Butter pie. I-and a few others- made some very inappropriate noises whilst eating this. it was so, so good.

Lauren's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Crack pie. so named because its very, very addictive- it contains Speculoos.

The view from the sweet end of the table.

The People: 

We had a good mix of Private Pie stalwarts and some newbies, who seemed rather impressed with the whole concept.

Private Pie regulars Ange and Alex couldn't make it, and were missed. We could tell they weren't there because no one brought a rude pie- they have made a name for themselves as suppliers of the cheekiest pie puns.

I want to thank all who were there for their generosity. Not only did they gave their time and effort to bake a beautiful pie to share, but they also donated generously. For this meeting, we didn't ask for subs, but we did ask for a small donation to be made to the cinema. The staff were really grateful for our contribution, and whilst it might now be quite enough to pay for them to get a digital projector (£60,000 or so!), our donation will no doubt be useful for something.

A special note of thanks to the girl that came in just when we were packing up to ask if there was any pie about to buy. We chatted about who we are and what we do, and she donated some money for the leftovers, which was really sweet of her considering we were just going to give it to her for free.


H xxx

July's meeting date announced!

Hi all,

So, the starting pistol has fired and the date for the next Private Pie Club meeting has been announced.

The date is 23rd July 2012

Time: 6pm onwards

Venue: a suitably sporting city centre venue

The theme is:

Sporting Pies

Places are already running out the door, so be sure to score yourself a goal place in our next meeting.

www.privatepie.co.uk

Hayley xxx

Local Tipples Pie Club Meeting

Hi all,

Again, an apology for how long it has taken me to get round to writing this up. I think i need some sort of a machine that converts my thoughts into blog posts without me actually having to sit down and type them up, as i hardly ever seem to have the time these days.

The Venue:

May's meeting was held in the wonderful Queen Vic pub in Gosforth. This pub is close to my heart as i used to live in the area and remember when it was Northern Lights before (a bit tatty and a bit rough). So, when the Queen Vic reopened I was so pleased to see what had been done with it- it is stylishly classic, the staff are briliant, and the food is rather good as well. The landlord Justin was so excited and supportive of the idea that it was a total pleasure to have organised it there.



the Theme:

This meeting's theme was Local Tipples, because what else do us Geordies like to do besides have a couple of bevvies. So we thought this would be a great opportunity to creatively use just a small selection of our local drinks in baking a pie.

I had assumed that we'd get loads of savoury pies and might struggle to get some sweet pies in this theme, but i was really pleased with how imaginative everyone was- we actually got a really good balance of savoury and sweet in the end.

The Pies:

I'm going to mainly let the pictures do the talking here:

 (Pictures to be uploaded as my computer is being rubbish!)

We had mead pies, cider pies, brandy pies and a variety of delicious ale pies.

Special mention goes to Alex with her home-made Newcastle Broon ice cream to accompany her pecan and broon pie, Jools for her creativity in bringing cake in the guise of Workie Ticket Whoopie Pies, the very mysterious Hair Of The Dog pie brought by Graham ("it contains hair. And dog."), and my colleague Haymond Lam, who despite never having baked a pie before and turning up late managed to steal the show with his pulled pork and ale pie.

The People:

Our marvellous bunch of loyal regulars turned up again- it's so wonderful to meet up and have a good old natter with a whole range of really genuine, good people. We had a couple of new guests as well, and it's always brilliant to see new faces enjoying the copious amounts of pie.

As is usual, there was very little left over!

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

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

Quick check in

Hiya all,

Well, it's just over a week until our next meeting. It seems to have been ages since our first meeting, and so much wonderful stuff has happened since then.

Today we are mainly excited to be going to the Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club meeting. After all, without the CCC, we would never exist in the first place, and all these exciting things would never have happened to us in the meantime.

We have sorted the venue and date for our March meeting, and all i will say is... It's British Pie Week in March. Hmm, I wonder if that could be a good time to hold a meeting?

Look out for announcements soon. And of course, we'll let you know all about the lovely pie we eat and the people we meet at our next event.

Hayley xxx

Oh my, what a day!

Hi all,

Just a quick check in to say "OMG WHAT AN EXCITING DAY!" or words to that nature.

Firstly, we made it into today's Chronicle (page 22, to be exact). We had almost a full page, and there was a very lovely write-up, which you can read here

We've had loads of amazing responses, and lots of people signing up, with the result that we are now FULLY BOOKED for our February meeting. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that we'd become so popular so quickly. We've even had applications to our standby list for this meeting.

Our lack of sweet pies problem appears to have been solved somewhat, with talk of a key lime pie possibility and a sweet potato pie signed up.

We also heard from the marvellous Simple Simon (self-styled, not a name we have assigned him) who let us know about his website which we think you'll be interested in- www.piespy.co.uk

We also had some lovely tweets from Lynne Hill, the Queen of the Clandestine Cake Club, which we're so pleased about as we really wouldn't exist if it wasn't for them paving the way for secret food groups with such style and panache.

Then we found out about British Pie Week, and I managed to accidentally enter Private Pie Club into a National pie recipe competition. Eek!

So then it was off to kettlebell class, as I really need to do some serious exercise in order to balance out the copious pie and cake quantities i will be eating in the future. Luckily, Nancy's partner Tony runs classes at The Unit Gym, and in Wallsend. I used to go to classes ages ago, but then I "fell out" of them, but now i've been back once I've realised that I've definitely really missed them. And this, coming from me who  has a pathological hatred of, and is completely useless at, any form of exercise, is high praise indeed.

Then, even more excitement after that, with a couple more Private Pie developments that I shall tell you more about when they come to fruition.

Oh, and in amongst all of this, I also signed myself up for some firewalking...

What a day...

Hayley xxx

Exciting times for Private Pie!

Hi all,

Just wanting to check in and let you all know how things are going. It's been an exciting few days for us at Private Pie.

So at the time of writing we have VERY limited space left for our second meeting. This whole concept has really taken off, and much more quickly than we thought. We've so far got a total of 12 bakers lined up, not to mention their non-baking guests, so there is going to be a WHOLE LOT OF PIE to be eating! We have Greek pie, Hungarian pie, Pie Thai, Mississippi Mud Pie and many more, although the sweet pie options are outweighed by the savoury at the moment by quite a lot, so we're hoping for a few more sweets.

Yesterday, we got a new domain name for our website, so it's now the beautifully simple www.privatepie.co.uk . Now we feel all professional and grown up!

We're also going to be in the Evening Chronicle tomorrow, which is both really exciting, and really terrifying as we have no idea what the picture will have turned out like :-S. It's so great that we're getting so much attention and publicity and that people seem to really like our idea.

I had to do some emergency baking in time for the photographer turning up, and made an emergency panic pie with the few ingredients i had in the house. It ended up looking acceptable enough, though i'm not convinced it's actually edible!

Then there was some lighting-based stress... As it turns out that one of the lights in my kitchen is inconveniently place right above the place the photographer wanted me to stand, causing shadows. The irony is that this exact light bulb hadn't been working for ages, then was changed only a few weeks ago by my boyfriend, Matt (or, to give him his full title: Pie Baking King [it's a long story] And Producer of Artistic Paraphernalia For Private Pie).

Anyway, some pictures were eventually taken, although we didn't see them, so hopefully they will be ok.

I also just want to say a big thank you to Lisa, the organiser of the Newcastle Clandestine Cake Club. She's been great, really enthusiastic about pie club, even though we have pretty much copied what she is doing with the CCC. She's even been kind enough to provide some comments to the reporter for the Chronicle. However, we do think that pie would definitely win over cake in a fight, and that's that.

Hayley xxx

New Event Date Announced!

Hi all,

We at Private Pie are very excited to announce the date of our next meeting:

Thursday 2nd February 2012

6-8pm

Venue: a place of historical significance near central station.

Theme: Pies of the world

Are you interested in coming along to sample the delights of freshly home-baked pie, with flavours from around the world? Is there a particular country's cooking you are interested in making? Remember that you can be as creative as you like around the theme and tenuous links are actively encouraged.

Drop us an email at privatepieclub@gmail.com stating:

• Your name
• Whether you will be bringing along a non-baking guest (max 1 per baker please)
• What pie you will be baking (or TBC if you want more time to think about it)

Or head over to our main site where you can fill in an online form.

Places are limited, so make sure you book your place as soon as possible. You don't want to miss out on some excellent pie in a great venue!

See you there

Hayley xxx

Bonus extra Pie Pic

Unfortunately my little camera died at the inaugural pie club meeting... it turns out that this is due to my frugality when buying batteries. apparently, 11 batteries for £1 does not equal a quality source of power...

Ah well... having borrowed stolen some quality batteries from the parents, I have discovered this one nice little photo from the Private Pie meeting.

The moral of the story is: Cheap batteries = false economy.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Bake more pie

2. Eat more pie

3. Go to Private Pie meetings

4. Meet some wonderful people along the way.

Hap-pie new year, and hope to see you at a meeting soon

Hayley xxx