Thanksgiving works a little differently for us vegans and vegetarians. We also love to celebrate and give thanks with those closest to us. We also love to share a grand meal and reflect on the past year. We also love pie.

What we do differently is not just swap out the meat with a squash or a store-bought substitute. We also make sure to think about the hundreds of millions of birds who are slaughtered each year during this time and give thanks to the individuals at sanctuaries around the country who take in the more fortunate. We thank the restaurants who cater to our lifestyle of compassion. And we thank the animals who make our lives richer, funnier, eye-opening, and loving.

Below is a list of events happening in the area to celebrate Thanksgiving AND the turkeys, plus options on places to order a vegan meal and desserts:

1. November 12: Join Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary for Toast for the Turkeys in honor of the rescued turkeys at the sanctuary.

   
   Two of the residents at Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary, Bill and Sierra. Bill was found wandering the streets of Berkeley before being pickup by Animal Control. He is a gentle giant with the manners of a perfect gentleman. He spends his days gracing the green pasture with his buddy, Sierra. Photo Credit: Christine Morrissey

   The event, sponsored by such Bay Area establishments as Cinnaholic, Vegansaurus, D.O.V.E. Distributors, and Rainbow Grocery will also feature a “Humane Harvest” vegetarian food drive, to benefit the Emergency Food Bank of Stockton/San Joaquin.

Check out this video from last year's Toast to the Turkeys:

2. November 19: Take part in Farm Sanctuary’s annual Celebration FOR the Turkeys which features a vegan feast, musical performance, guest presentations, and the most adored of all – the Feeding of the Turkeys celebration, where the turkeys are the center of attention and dine on squash, pumpkin pie, and cranberries (on silver platters of course!).

   
   Me bonding with a turkey at the 2009 Feeding of the Turkeys. They are incredibly friendly animals and love to socialize and be petted!

   This year’s guests will include vegan writer and chef Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and the new Biz & Livia Stone Foundation, who became vegan after visiting Farm Sanctuary. You will also be able to tour the farm and visit with all the other animals. I was taken to the Celebration FOR the Turkeys for my 30th birthday, and it was the best birthday I ever had (good job, husband!).

   
   Two turkeys enjoying their feast of pumpkin and veggies. At factory farms, turkeys' beaks and toes are clipped (without anesthesia), so these guys have a little trouble eating without getting messy. But they definitely still enjoy the feast that so many turkeys don't get to experience.

   Farm Sanctuary (who recently took in 25 baby turkeys from a factory farm that were dumped on their doorstep) truly changes your perspective on farm animals as you spend time with them, experience their different personalities, and watch them thrive in a free and loving environment. [If you can’t make it, consider sponsoring a turkey!]

3. November 24: Join Café Gratitude (who recently opened a location in LA!) for their annual vegan Free Thanksgiving Meal, where this super compassionate establishment gives back with a feast served by volunteers from the community.

   
   Cafe Gratitude's Annual Free Thanksgiving Meal. Photo Credit: Cary Mosier
   
   If you prefer to stay in, you can still experience some Gratitude on your table by ordering a pie to go. Their desserts are seriously delicious (and probably the most healthy you’ll ever eat). It's sure to please vegans and omnis alike.

4. Order your vegan holiday meal from Souley Vegan, everyone’s favorite vegan soul food restaurant! This year the offerings include Southern fried tofu, roasted garlic mashed potato with gravy, and cornbread dressing, among other delicious options. You can also order pies and cheesecakes.

   
   Photo Credit: Souley Vegan

   Check out their homepage for a link to the menu and ordering instructions (order must be received by November 21).

5. Cinnaholic is promising some exciting holiday flavors this year, including pumpkin spice and egg nog frostings, and toppings like gingersnaps, candy cane pieces, and peppermint “Oreos.”

   
   Photo Credit: Michael Lang/Cinnaholic

   They’ve also teamed up with the aforementioned Harvest Home Sanctuary to celebrate the Toast to the Turkeys by donating, for the entire month of November, 50% of all Baby Bun sales to help out with feeding, housing, and general care for the animals.

And if you are simply looking for a way to complete your holiday table with something sweet, here are a few other places to check out for ordering Thanksgiving desserts:

Wholesome Bakery: Try their Sweet Potato Pecan Baby Pies
Rainbow Grocery: They always have an assortment of vegan treats from various local bakeries.
Mission Pie: They're offering a Vegan Apple-Cranberry crumb-top pie this year for Thanksgiving.
Fat Bottom Bakery: You can special order some Pumpkin Cupcakes with vegan cream cheese frosting.
Idle Hands Baking Company: Try their Spice Cake (gluten-free option available) or Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

In the late summer, a baker’s fancy turns to thoughts of pie. Everywhere you look in the markets, you’re confronted with gorgeous fruit in season.

Naturally, this is the time of year to hold pie contests. The 5th Annual Mission Pie Contest pulled in 20 hopefuls on Sunday, and the people who showed up were as varied as the pies they brought to the competition.

Mission Pie co-owner Krystin Rubin preps the contenders. Can you tell which one will win Best in Show? Hint: it’s staring you right in the face!

After the judges got an eyeful of the complete pie (appearance was a key judging factor), Mission Pie co-owner Krystin Rubin cut them open. You’d think, as a professional, she’d cast a jaundiced eye over some of the sloppier entrants, but no. “Each one is just a delight to encounter. The amount of care that’s gone into each one of these... Really, it’s touching to me, how seriously all the contestants are taking this.”

While the judges tasted and took notes in the kitchen, the contenders and their supporters dove into the rest of the pies laid out in the front room.

Checking out the competition while the judges deliberate back in the kitchen.

Callie Arnold, a pre-school teacher currently from West Marin, made a chocolate cherry pie. She acknowledged preemptively that the recipe makes for a pie that’s “a little soupy,” but that’s exactly why she thinks it works. Arnold loves how the cherry juices run out and mix with the chocolate. Years of practice have made her confident of this pie’s charms, but she harbored doubts when I talked to her, right after she tasted the Shaker Lemon.

The Shaker Lemon.

Clothing designer Michelle Tannenbaum of San Francisco was also worried about the Shaker Lemon. She made a galette with plums, pluots, and Mission, Adriatic and Kadota figs. The filling came courtesy of Knoll Farms, the famous fig producer from Brentwood. OK, so I’m biased, because I did a story on them two years ago for NPR and I was blown away by their fruit. Tannenbaum was more than blown away. After years of arriving at the open of the Ferry Building Farmers' Market to get first crack at their fruit, she finally began selling for the Knolls at their stand. The habit is cheaper that way.

With 20 pies on the table, Judge Patricia Hewitt has got to take careful notes.

Back in the kitchen, the judging continued. Filmmaker Kyle Garrett recently started The 7 Squared Project, a documentary series highlighting non-profit and otherwise “purposeful” businesses in San Francisco. Mission Pie, with its mission driven approach to community building, is one of his subjects. Of course, I had to ask him about the Shaker Lemon. Garrett thought it “pretty spectacular,” even though he’s not a huge lemon fan. “It was kind of crisp and chewy at the same time. The flavor was not overpowering.“

Judge Kyle Garrett clears his palette with a sip of water.

While there were professional bakers on the judging panel, (Michelle Pusateri of Nana Joe's Granola and Mission Pie’s Sharon Litzky) Mission Pie’s co-owners Krystin Rubin and Karen Heisler like to make sure non-professionals are well represented, too. Each year, the previous year’s winner is invited to judge. Patricia Hewitt won the contest last year with a honey pie, made with honey from her own bee hive. “A honey mousse pie, really. With a very flaky crust.”

The Emperor Norton

Hewitt was immediately taken with the concept of the Emperor Norton, a chocolate nut concoction. “It’s incredibly sweet and nutty, and Emperor Norton probably was sweet and nutty, too. I’m really thrilled to see someone incorporating the history of San Francisco into a San Franciscan pie contest.”

There must be some way to find the metaphoric significance in the toughness of the crust as it relates to the character of the famous 19th century oddball, but I can’t think of it off-hand. Somebody had to hold the plate down, so Hewitt could make off with a bite of the Emperor Norton using her compostable fork. Still, she was smitten.

After 90 minutes, with the crowd in the front room buzzed with restless energy. They’d already fixed on their pick for People’s Choice. But the judges in the kitchen took their time, deliberating earnestly.

Everybody loved the flaky crust on the Shaker lemon, but only on top. The bottom was gummy, and in a pie contest, anything less than a dynamite crust will take you out of the running. The judges waxed lyrical about the crust on a lime blackberry Italian meringue that “revealed itself in layers.” Best Crust by a unanimous vote.

Emperor Norton walked away with Most Creative. But the crown for Best in Show went to something entirely different, an unassuming pie with none of the visual flash or dazzle of its competitors. It was, one judge said later, “a sleeper.”

When the group got to the Coffee Break Pie, they all murmured the word “love” in unison. Even though one judge worried the taste was so “classic,” there was a good chance this pie came straight from an old recipe book. As if that would be a problem. Executing a pie recipe properly is no small feat.

The judge needn’t have worried. Coffee Break Pie did not exist before Sunday.

Sarah Jones takes the crown to thunderous applause.

For the past two weeks, Sarah Jones of Dallas (and more recently Palo Alto) has been baking “non-stop.” She baked every night, and ate pie for breakfast, searching for the perfect recipe. Her colleagues in accounting at Apple have also been gamely gaining weight in support of her bid.

Jones found something close in Bon Appetit: a recipe for caramel coffee creme brulee. And then she found another, for a salty honey pie.

“So I basically took a salty honey recipe, substituted caramel that was infused with coffee for the honey and then did a Biscoff cream (creamed cookies, people!) and sea salt." She had been looking for Nutella in the market and came across the Biscoff instead...

“At the last minute, I decided to lighten it up with the Biscoff cream, and I think that helped cut the sweetness a little bit.”

“I was so afraid,” Jones said, “because everybody had fruit, and I was going to go fruit. And I just decided, you know, I’m going to go really rich.”

She must have been gauging the tenor of the room, because the People’s Choice was indeed fruity to the max: Ru Cymrot-Wu’s Olallieberry and Peach.

Ru Cymrot-Wu wins the People’s Choice award

Two awards for summer fruit. Two for rich and creamy. In all honesty, they were all of them poetry on a plate. In this kind of a contest, everybody wins.

A few months ago I began leading tours for Edible Excursions (run by epicurean concierge Lisa Rogovin) around North Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto, which includes visits to the Cheeseboard Collective, photo ops in front of Chez Panisse, and the occasional celebrity sighting (or what counts as celebrity in that town--don't blink but there's Michael Lewis buying pie with one of his kids.)

Many participants ask about other tours the company offers, which I don't lead, but I realized pretty quickly I needed to know what was on the menu so I could share the details with potential repeat customers.

So I recently shadowed the Taste the Mission tour (arguable the real Ghetto Gourmet these days) and what struck me on that food store and restaurant jaunt, as we spent three hours hoofing around the 'hood, was the different business models employed by the people in the kitchens trying to survive--or even thrive--during recessionary times.

What I came away with from that afternoon (aside from an impressive food baby after hearty sampling at nine spots) is a bit of a metaphor for life--there's no right way to do it, different strategies work for different people, love what you do, work hard, and the rest will follow.

Below, a trio of approaches to ride out the recession.

Pan Dulce on display at La Victoria Bakery. Photo: Courtesy of Edible Excursions.

Adapt or die: The best example of this approach can be found at La Victoria Bakery, an anchor institution at 24th and Alabama Streets that's sold conchas for some sixty years. Fast-talking owner Jamie Maldonado figured out that simply serving Latin pastries wasn't going to cut it in today's culinary climate. These days the cafe features a line of sweet treats from Wholesome Bakery, which turns out vegan cakes, cookies, and pies. Maldonado rents out kitchen space to Mission fixtures such as Iso Rabins of forageSF, and Danny Gabriner of Sour Flour, both of whom were at the cafe during our tour. And the cafe now hosts pop-up dinners by popular street-food chefs like Hapa SF and Soul Cocina.

Top left: Natalie Galatzer of Bike Basket Pies. Photo: Daniel Laing. Top right: Karen Heisler and crew from Mission Pie. Photo: Anne Hamersky.
Bottom left: Mission Minis sweet treats. Photo: Serena Bartlett. Bottom right: Manny Gimenez of Mr. Pollo. Photo: Serena Bartlett.

Start Small: This category includes many relatively new arrivals to the Mission District, such as bite-sized cupcakery Mission Minis, seasonal sweet and savory pastries from Bike Basket Pies, and the in-demand arepas from Manny Torres Gimenez of Mr. Pollo.

Consider, too, Mission Pie, which began as a slip of a store serving sweet tarts and took over the space next door when it became available at the busy intersection of Mission and 25th Streets. Store co-owner Karen Heisler says that the organic way the business grew made sense in terms of their overall business plan. "We wanted to make sure the community wanted us and responded to what we do," says Heisler, who sells affordable, sustainable savory and sweet eats made from ingredients sourced locally from places like Pie Ranch, Blue House Farm, and Good Humus Farm. Heisler says she's not interested in opening Mission Pie 2 or scaling up to sell wholesale, but wants to continue to solidify loyal relationships with consumers and vendors. (Heisler talks about her favorite local places in this previous BAB post.)

Street sign for the restaurant and bakery housed in one space. Photo: Serena Bartlett.

Diversify: Yaron Milgrom, owner of Local: Mission Eatery envisioned a village gathering place with a food focus. His business at 24th and Folsom Streets is essentially an inexpensive sandwich-soup-salad shop by day and morphs into a high-end restaurant at night. It also acts as a cookbook lending library and offers kitchen classes several times a month. Jake Des Voignes is the chef and his partner in life Shauna Des Voignes runs Knead Patisserie in the rear of the restaurant. Shauna sets up a cart in the establishment's entryway in the morning, catching commuters on the fly who nab lemon ricotta turnovers or brioche apple rolls on their way to BART.

Who makes it in the fickle food biz in the continually evolving Mission District remains to be seen. But the economic models employed here may well be instructive--as these food folks create community around good grub.

What other innovative approaches to selling food have you come across in the Mission or elsewhere in your travels?

Shaker Lemon Pie from A Sweet Spoonful

You've probably heard. The New York Times and NPR are both saying pie is the new "it" dessert. In her piece for the New York Times, Julia Moskin writes "Pie had been lurking below the radar in recent years: taking cover during the ice cream trend, perhaps waiting to see which way the macaron tide would turn." Perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you have another vote. Or maybe you're tired of food trend predictions altogether. Maybe, you simply like to poke fun at them as Cheryl Sternman Rule has done in her witty post, The Most Superlative Food Trends List Anywhere.

Trends aside, you've got to admit you've been seeing some major pie love lately. For her piece "Cupcakes are Dead, Long Live the Pie," Bonnie Wolf writes, "Texas and New York restaurants offer pie happy hours. Pies are showing up at weddings, and pie shops are opening in a neighborhood near you. Pies come in sweet and savory, maxi and mini, deep dish and deep-fried." Reading and musing on pie this past week got me thinking about my two very favorite spots to grab a slice. One is here in San Francisco. The other? Brooklyn, New York. Judging by what these neighborhood shops are baking each day, I'm thinking pie is here to stay.

Mission Pie: San Francisco, CA

If I lived in the Mission, I'd eat a lot of pie thanks to Mission Pie. They have a seasonally rotating menu of pies and source their fruit and produce from local and organic farmers. If you are even a distant fan of banana cream pie and haven't had a slice of theirs, your New Years Resolution has been written. I also love their Black Walnut which is not, as is often the case, too, too sweet. And they have a fabulous savory line with everything from pot pies to quiches and galettes. With their buttery walls and big communal table, this is a great spot to enjoy a flaky piece of pie and some peace and quiet right in the heart of the bustling Mission.

Mission Pie
2901 Mission St. (at 25th Street)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 282-1500

Four & Twenty Blackbirds: Brooklyn, NY

Four & Twenty Blackbirds has been getting its fair share of press lately. It seems like everyone from Ready Made Magazine to The New York Times is chatting about this charming pie shop in Gowanus, Brooklyn run by sisters Emily and Melissa. They're known for their Salted Caramel Apple pie and fruit pies made with aromatics and bitters. When I visited over Thanksgiving, we tried the Maple Custard and that infamous apple. I'm not sure if I was more smitten with the pie or the space itself. Emily and Melissa have done an amazing job of creating a very old-fashioned yet modern and breezy space that you just want to linger in for an entire afternoon. It feels good in there. No one's rushing to get to their next meeting or yammering away on their cell phones (at least when we were there--I'm sure it probably happens). The sisters do savory items as well and make one mean cup of coffee. When in Brooklyn, eat this pie.

Four & Twenty Blackbirds
439 3rd Avenue (at 8th Street)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Park Slope / Gowanus
(718) 499-2917

One of the things that makes the Bay Area such an irresistibly lovely place to live is that, by and large, we're a buoyant lot. Let those on the other coast stomp slushily to the treadmill this morning to suffer for all their bacon-and-eggnog holiday excess. We'll be out here in the Pacific sunshine, picking Meyer lemons to squeeze into our green tea and visualizing abundance--not necessarily around our midriffs, but in our lives and others'.

Too often, it seems, gastronomic New Year's resolutions are all about "don'ts"--don't love the deep-dish at Little Star or the bacon cheeseburger at Marlowe so much; don't demolish half a loaf of Outerlands' bread in one sitting unless you've walked from Russian Hill and back to get it; don't spend more at Blue Bottle than you put in your savings account every month.

Instead of focusing on cutting things out (like the freebie salumi at Adesso's twice-daily aperitivi hour or the chocolate egg creams at Sidekick in the Ferry Building, to name just a few of my own local pleasures) this year, why not focus on adding things in? Things that are fun, things that last, things that do good for your community and for the beautiful and winter-greened land we all call home.

This year, why not resolve to:

Mural and compost at Free Farm

Get Dirty, Grow Locally

A community garden plot is a great place to start, but why not share your labor and get to know your neighbors? Volunteer at one of the numerous urban farms that have sprung up around the Bay Area. Willing hands are always needed, especially in the cold, rainy, tomato-less months. And not all the jobs require heavy lifting or complete mobility; I've spend many afternoons poking seeds into flats, transplanting seedlings, and making signs.

Dig, dine, and dance! Sign up for the monthly newsletter from Pie Ranch. The country outpost of Mission Pie, this small farm is located down the coast in Davenport, just north of Santa Cruz. On the 3rd Saturday of each month, the ranch hosts a community workday, followed by a potluck supper and a barn dance with a caller.

A fun outing for families is Marin Organic's Monday afternoon Glean Team. Each week, a different organic farm in Marin lets locals pick through their already-harvested fields for not-quite-as-pretty (but just as delicious) produce. The boxes of fresh, local veggies are distributed directly to schools in Marin. Afterward, gleaners can pick a round for themselves. (You'd be surprised what kids will eat when they've picked it themselves--especially if they've gotten good & muddy in the process.)

Strawberry Jam

Can It, Brine It, Carve It

Would-be urban homesteaders have a lot of choices these days. Longing to swap out the Heinz's for your own homemade ketchup and pickles? Then the folks at Happy Girl Kitchen have a workshop for you. (And for the truly serious among you, there's "Advanced Jam," prerequisite required.)

Charmed by winter's citrus, but afraid of ending up with sticky clementine soup or Meyer-lemon jello blocks? Put yourself in the knowledgeable hands of June Taylor, the British-born queen of marmalades. No one in the Bay Area takes fruit work as seriously (or finds it as fascinating) as Taylor does. At $200 per person, her small, hands-on classes are pricey, but her intelligent, carefully structured how-tos will forever take the guesswork out of your canning.

Prefer salami to jellies? The nose-to-tail classes in butchery and meat preservation at Fatted Calf will expose your sexy inner butcher. Get on their mailing list to sign up for a class; they sell out fast. (Classes are offered in both their Napa and their Hayes Valley locations.)

In Bernal Heights, Avedano's offers monthly "Butchery for Adults" and "Advanced Butchery" classes, as well as classes in trussing, carving, and curing.

...Then Talk About It

What do we talk about when we talk about food? Everything from the eco-sustainability of small-scale meat production to the history of heirloom apples has become food for thought lately. If you're curious as to what the Bay Area's farmers, writers, makers and thinkers are thinking about, check out the calendars at Kitchen Table Talks and 18 Reasons. Both offer an intriguing roster of thought-provoking events, talks, and panel discussions.

At Headlands Center for the Arts, performances, artists' presentations, and gallery talks are often preceded by a communal meal in the old mess hall. Sometimes, however, the meal itself is the event, as local or visiting artists and chefs come together to get inspired by the palette of the windswept, (supposedly) ghost-ridden landscape of the Marin Headlands, using mostly local and mostly organic produce, meats, and fish as their medium. Have more time than money? Volunteers are often needed to help in the kitchen, set up, serve, and clean up.

Elsewhere in Marin, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), which works to preserve farmland in Marin while educating the public about conservation, is currently accepting volunteers for its two training sessions in January and February. The training will include trips to farmers, ranchers, and dairy farmers in the area.

...And Give Back

The holidays may be over, but the need at local food banks, soup kitchens, and food pantries remains just as strong. Find out when, where, and how to help, now that the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas volunteer crush has subsided.

Mission Pie's Karen Heisler and Krystin Rubin. Photo by Todd Lappin of Telstar Logistics

Karen Heisler and Krystin Rubin first worked together to start Mission Pie, which is a for-profit business that serves sustainable food including sweet and savory pie. The two met a few months before Mission Pie opened in its original, smaller location. Rubin was finished with a farm apprenticeship and looking for work. Friends kept emailing Rubin the craigslist posting for a Mission Pie manager, so she decided "what the hell" and decided to apply.

Heisler is also a co-founder of Pie Ranch in Pescadero, which is a non-profit sustainable farming parcel. Pie Ranch is one of the ingredient sources to Mission Pie. Heisler is an original Mission Pie partner, and Rubin eventually joined her. Rubin said the two, "live upstairs, on the top floor," of the building that houses Mission Pie. Here are Rubin & Heisler's picks for Bay Area food spots.

LOCAL FAVORITE SPOTS
Rubin: "I am a creature of habit. I think that comes from being a baker." Both describe Middle Eastern Old Jerusalem Restaurant as a regular eating spot, and Heisler said it’s "the OJ," and that "I feel so blessed 'Wow, this is on our block.'" She is a fan of the OJ's cucumber salad, which is not on the current menu.

Rubin: "For a treat, I love Range. I love to sit at the bar. The bartenders are friendly and wonderful. I like to have a cocktail and a couple of dishes."

Heisler: "For a nice romantic dinner with Krystin, it's hard to match the quality of friendly intimacy of the bar at Range. I've never sat anywhere but the bar. The food is consistently excellent, and it's a place that I change my clothes for."

Rubin likes Zuni Café for "special occasion, Aunt and Uncle are visiting visits. Martinis and oysters, a Caesar salad."

Heisler: "Ti Couz is one of my favorites for a few reasons. I love their savory crepes. I'll get a caramelized onion crepe, and big organic salad with cheese. It's really a wonderful place to share a salad. The aesthetic is in the most positive way a throwback… the hand cut wood bar. It feels to me like the place has a design that really touches my heart. It's so evident that they have a community of ownership and workership and are committed to a sort of functionally sustainable workplace model. It's compelling because it's so lasting. Krystin and I go there for lunch and dinner, and it's a favorite to go with my daughter," who is twenty-three.

Heisler: "Sometimes I go out to the Latin American Club, early. If you can get that front window table…."

FOOD SHOPPING
Rubin said that the recently launched Mission Community Market, "has turned into the main place I get produce. It's nice to engage (there). We get stuff for (Mission Pie), twenty flats of berries." Heisler: "It's interesting to see it evolve, and feels important to go there. The producers are (of) super high quality."

Both also go to Rainbow Grocery regularly, and Heisler said she is "a Rainbow loyalist all the way back to 16th Street."

Nearby Semirami's is a favorite of both, "for olives and things like that," said Rubin.

You may spot Rubin reading the papers in front of Valencia Whole Foods. "It's a nice sunny spot. I read the Sunday Times, and get a kombucha."

Heisler: "I love going to the Alemany Market and rarely have the opportunity anymore. We both work on Saturday." The two did get to recently go the weekend after Thanksgiving, when Mission Pie was briefly closed.

CHICKEN
Heisler: "We have friends who started a farm: Dinner Bell Farm." Mission Pie is a pick up spot for their chickens. Heisler described the Dinner Bell Farm birds as "so wonderful. The birds are delicious. There is a Hungarian chicken that has dense tasting meat, with a thin skin. It makes me think of my heritage."

According to their Twitter feed, there's a chance of spotting the Mission Pie crew at this Friday's La Cocina Gift Fair, held at the nearby Mission Cultural Community Center for Latino Arts. Or go straight to the source, and see Heisler and Rubin in action at Mission Pie.

Apple and walnut pies. Photo by Travis E. Smith