Each of the participating inns will be offering workshops throughout the day showing baking techniques, decorating and lots of pies for tasting.
The tour starts at 1 pm and a good idea would be to make the Old Granite Inn your first stop. Innkeeper Ed Hantz, an avid cook, will be in his element demonstrating how to make flaky meat pies.
For dessert, move on to the cherry and berry pies at the Berry Manor Inn. Cheryl Michaelsen keeps her pantries stocked with homemade pies year-round for guests’ enjoyment. Cheryl’s mother and mother-in-law and their lifelong friend bake 500 pies a year for the inn, all the while waging a “friendly battle” over who makes the best crust. Tour participants are sure to enjoy their demonstrations. When they’re not throwing flour and waving their rolling pins at each other, they’ll show how to make the perfect lattice work crusts.
Stop by the Limerock Inn for a cup of their specially blended coffee and slices of innkeeper Frank Isganitis’ delightful variety of quiches, berry pies and tarts.
Captains Ken and Ellen Barnes of the Captain Lindsey House love food; they wrote the cookbook “A Taste of the Tabor,” containing recipes they used cooking for guests on windjammer trips aboard their schooner the Stephen Tabor. Now landlocked in their historic inn, they’ll demonstrate how to decorate pies in a unique way — using marzipans and meringues.
Newcomers to the tour, Susan and Jim Rodiger, welcome participants to the Lakeshore Inn. You can sip hot chocolate and nosh on homemade sweet potato pie while watching the innkeepers make two versions of it, a light and airy chiffon pie and a dense custard. It’s the same recipe, but with different results.
All the inns are offering Pies on Parade packages with prices starting from $• to $225. This includes two tickets to the tour, a copy of the Historic Inns of Rockland cookbook, “Let Us Eat Pie,” and guests get a pie of their own to take home.
Sampling all these pies is for a good cause — proceeds are donated to the Area Interfaith Outreach Food Pantry to help feed families in need. So, eat up and help those less fortunate.
— Contributed by Fran Folsom