Who ate all the pies?

I’d been determined that I wasn’t going to add a mere pie book to my groaning bookshelves but then I figured that a) “Sophie Conran’s Pies” is going to be featured in one of next year's Blueprint Café Cookbook Club evenings and I want to be prepared and b) Sophie is rather fond of pies, as am I, so she knows what she’s talking about. And there are some fabulous pie recipes, great pie photography courtesy of David Loftus and some rather fascinating little tidbits in her little pink book. Sophie says that there has been a long tradition of live animals and even people being ‘baked’ into pies or, rather inserted into a pre-baked pie case and later released to entertain and astonish the assembled guests. My, do I have a plan for our next extravaganza D? – be afraid, be very afraid! Ha!

But instead of people pies my eyes and stomach have pounced upon ‘Cow Pie’, ‘Pork and Prune with Apple Mash’, ‘Ham and Cheese Picnic Pie’, 'Jasper's Steak and Kidney Pie' (with added horseradish), ‘Sausage and Mushroom’, ‘Potato and Bacon’, ‘Rabbit Pie’ – courtesy of the effervescent Jeremy Lee, ‘Venison with Port and Plums’ and in the Tweety Pie chapter – ‘Chicken and Egg Pie’, ‘Chicken with Leeks and Cream’, ‘Creamy Chicken with Chanterelles’ and of course various ‘Fish Pies’, ‘Cod Pie’, ‘Haddock and Black Pudding Mini Tarts’ and Simon Hopkinson’s recipe for Flamiche – a particular favourite.

Wow, there are some seriously great recipes in here and Iove her enthusiasm for the subject. How could I almost have denyed this book shelf room, shame on me!

I feel a pie coming on very, very soon. Who ate all the pies? I did!