By The Salty Chef, honest fucking reviews

If desserts were people, pie would be the one who says, “I’m low maintenance,” then hijacks your entire weekend. I’ve spent decades in kitchens, and nothing has humbled me more. Not soufflé. Not French macarons. Pie.

Why? Because fruit is a moody bitch. Sometimes she’s carrying enough water weight to flood your crust, and other times she’s as dry as my lawn come August. Every pie presents as a damn negotiation.

But when pie is done right? Forget cake. Forget warm cookies (yes, really). Pie is the heavyweight champion of desserts. It takes patience, instinct and usually a grandmother who’s been quietly kicking pie’s ass for the last 50 years.

The problem is, Grandma isn’t always home. Sometimes she’s at the Oregon Country Fair dancing around in nothing but a skirt and Birks, leaving you to fend for yourself. 

So I went looking.

Let’s cut to the quick. Cue Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.” I’ve made the Eugene pie circuit: Albertsons, Barry’s, Costco, Elegant Elephant, Market of Choice, Metropol, Noisette, Second Breakfast, Sweet Life Patisserie, Whole Foods… enough pie to make Johnny Cash weep. 

Honestly, out of all those stops, only one pie made me quit making frowny face and just eat.

Second Breakfast Pies, found at the Tuesday and Saturday Lane County Farmers Market, makes the best pie I’ve had in Eugene. Whole pies are made to order and you can do that on their website. Amazing hand pies are $9, and a whole pie is $36 each (plus $5 deposit for the glass pie plate).

The runner-up is Sweet Life Patisserie on Monroe Street. They offer several varieties daily, and while not every slice was life-changing, they’re consistently good and miles ahead of most of the competition. By the slice is $7.25 and a whole fruit pie is $35

So what separates a great pie from an overpriced faux-pie?

A proper pie is fresh, for fuck’s sake. If I can taste your refrigeration in the crust, I’m out (you know who you are, bakeries), and it starts with a flaky, buttery crust that has just enough salt to help the fruit filling sing. The filling should be juicy but never soupy or stodgy, bursting with actual fruit flavor, balanced with a touch of spice and maybe a hint of citrus. My ideal ratio is about 20 percent crust and 80 percent filling.

And for the love of butter, there shouldn’t be a single ingredient in your pie that sounds like it belongs in a chemistry textbook. You know — butylated hydroxyanisole, azodicarbonamide, tertiary butylhydroquinone. If I need a Ph.D. in chemistry to understand the label, we’ve wandered a little too far from Grandma’s kitchen.

But alas… that’s a rant for another review, and I’m chomping at the bit to expose food poisoners.

Second Breakfast gets that balance right. Their crust has a flaky crunch instead of chewing like over-worked Play-Doh. The filling tastes like fruit instead of a bucket of sugar, and the apples melt in your mouth. My only suggestion for improvement is to introduce the dough to a touch more salt and remind the cinnamon to sing, not whisper.

Now let’s talk about shitty pie.

Shitty pie is stale, lacks seasoning and joy, and has a thick, soggy crust that tastes like low-sodium cardboard. The filling is either stiff from too much starch or you need a straw, wildly out of balance between sweet and tart, and somehow the slice ends up being 60 percent crust and 40 percent filling. That’s not pie. Straight to jail.

After pie prowling my way across Eugene, I’ve come to one upstanding conclusion: Stop looking for the perfect pie. Become the person who bakes it.

Stop dicking around town chasing pie like I did. Become the samurai of pie instead. Learn what “coarse crumbs” and “pea-sized butter” actually mean. Master the perfect slurry. Add “dough crimping” to your resume. Sharpen your knife skills by taking charge of 3 to 4 pounds of apples.

One day you’ll pull a pie from the oven that’s so damn good you’ll find yourself standing in Mr. Miyagi’s Crane Pose, silently admiring your own handiwork before anyone gets a slice.

So don’t be an A, make a pie, and ask Granny to school you for fuck’s sake.

Find The Salty Chef’s apple pie recipe at EugeneWeekly.com. 

You’ll find The Salty Chef in the Weekly every month. The identity is under wraps so restaurants have the best chance of serving an honest meal instead of putting on a show. The Salty Chef has a lifetime of experience in professional kitchens across multiple states, is a native Oregonian, and someone with a healthy appetite for great food, sassy opinions and calling it like they taste it.

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