Birthday Pie?

Over the weekend, My Beloved, Cora and I attended a great 40th birthday party for a young friend of ours. In a rented house in Stinson Beach, complete with hot tub and sweeping ocean view, the hostess spread out all kinds of goodies to eat from a family-traditional macaroni salad to enormous steaks to fruit wrapped in prosciutto. Drinks were served in cups emblazoned with a photograph of the birthday boy at age 8 or so and tagged with the line, "He's not a kid anymore!" And, when dinner was over, out came the birthday pies, complete with 40 black candles.

Birthday pies?

Yes, delicious ones transported by the hostess's Mom all the way from Mission Pie in San Francisco's Mission district. And what a great idea they were! Who needs cake and ice cream when they can have freshly baked pies? I had a taste of both the peach with a traditional closed crust and the mixed berry with a crumble crust and, although both were really, really good and the peach was wonderfully fresh and peachy, the mixed berry won the day in my opinion. Although Mission Pie is a for-profit business, they also help at-risk youth by employing them to make and sell the offerings of the bakery and to learn the rudiments of running a business.

It feels good on lots of levels to eat delicious pies, surrounded by celebrating friends and knowing that the purchase helped some troubled kids, as well. What a great 40th birthday wish!