As I mentioned in my recent review of the Strawberry Festival at the Claremont Union Episcopal Church, I’ve been trying to visit more of the various community meals that spring up around the Upper Valley. Harvest suppers, Church dinners, and fundraisers. With that in mind, in late July Carol and I spotted such an opportunity in the local newspaper, the annual Pie Breakfast sponsored by the Wilmot Community Association in Wilmot, NH. Wilmot is one of the smaller towns in the area, located NE of New London, Wilmot is a cruciform-shaped town that was formed from bits of New London, the Kearsarge Gore (a bit of NH land previously unallocated to any town), and Hill, NH. Like a lot of these towns, it actually has multiple “downtown” areas: Wilmot Center and Wilmot Flat. The Wilmot Community Association (the WCA) hosts occasional community building events, and one of their well-respected annual events is their Pie Breakfast.
WCA holds events like this in the “Red Barn”, a nice event space right in the heart of Wilmot Flat by the Post Office. The overall concept of the pie breakfast is very straightforward: $10 gets you two slices of pie (one of which can optionally be a quiche), fresh fruit, home fries, coffee, juice, and pastries. The pies are all baked up by local Wilmot residents (the event is a WCA fundraiser). Simply walk in, pay your $10 donation, and the friendly folks at the serving window will offer you up your choice of hand-made pies and quiches. It is a rather impressive spread, with over a dozen different pies (and two quiches) to choose from on our visit.
So, the question everyone is likely to be asking is “How good was the pie”? Really good. These are honest-to-God homemade pies, and not just those of the “slapped some pudding into a Graham cracker crust” thing. I had both an apple pie and a strawberry rhubarb pie, and both were generous 1/6 of a pie wedges, pied high, with a nicely-made crust with a good crumb. Both had a proper filling: nicely softened without being squishy, and being most without being able to soak the crust. The crust itself had a very robust, buttery flavor and a nice crumb. In other words, two really good slices of pie. Add in some good home fries and some pastries, and this was a very satisfying and filling breakfast.
The only down-side? I think this only a once-a-year event every July. So mark your calendars, folks!
