If you didnt already know, Martha Stewart invited Bake for Hope to participate in her Pie contest/show airing Monday, Nov. 16th! Here's the story of our week in New York.

Martha

The story... my daughter and I arrived in NYC on Monday and checked into the Affinia Hotel in the Garment District. The hotel graciously gave us suite and it even had a full kitchen (working stove and fridge).This was an unexpected but wonderful suprise, it made the logistics a breeze.

Our first night Ruby and I walked up 7th street to Times Square and on that magical walk came across a huge statue of a seamstress working at a sewing machine. Just at that moment it all became clear. My great grandmother, who I was so close with growing up, made an amazing Lemon Meringue pie at every family get together. (This was the pie I chose to make for the show.) And to be sure I knew I was special she made a smaller pie just for me.  My great grandmother was also a seamstress all her life. So, there we were staring at this statue, in the Garment District, a NY hotel with a kitchen and going on Martha Stewart. I hadnt noticed all the obvious signs until now, I was in awe. All I could do was say Thank you Grandma.

Tuesday, my mom came in town and we took her to Times Square and then to Bryant park to for an evening of ice skating. As we sat with popcorn watching the skaters before going on, the zamboni came out to clean the ice. My mom remembered her father, who died last year. He used to drive the zamboni for a rink her in town.  We both felt him with us. It was perfect night.

Wednesday Ruby and mom went to central park and I spent the day with my dear friend Nancy (the FlowerPower.org founder) making pie crusts over and over again. The recipe called for lard and I was afraid to use it. After some research I found out leaf lard has less fat than butter. I found this rare commodity at an Italian market only 9 blocks away. It took some work and creativity to get the crust to stop shrinking and loosing its shape. I was up until midnight perfecting the crust and practicing the meringue to make it as big and stable as possible. The next day was the show...

Thursday. I woke up very early to finish the meringue for the pie. It turned out great, but I wanted to fix the top just a bit more and touched the meringue top - and wrecked it. I thought, I can fix that, I will just add more meringue to the top. When my mom saw the pie she said what did you do, 'it looks like it has a hat.' So I decided very last minute to remove the entire meringue and remake more. Now, I am 1 hour from when I am supposed to be at the show and I am standing in the kitchen in towel dripping wet. My mom scrambled down to the market for more eggs. I start working on the other ingredients. I redo the meringue and run to dry my hair while my mom watches the pie top turn golden. We had but moments to leave. She called me to check the meringue turning perfectly gold and just as she was holding it up, one end of the pie slips from her hand and drops. A large chunk of crust falls from the edge of the pie and the meringue cracks away form the edge. We were both in shock. I didnt have a moment to waste so I grabbed the pie, foreced the crust back on, put on my shoes and left. 

It was raining outside, but the time I got in line to check the pie in the pie had split from the broken crust completely down the middle of the pie to the other side - something like the great divide. It was a "hot mess". I could hear my grandma saying, "buck up". So I just put the pie on the cart and checked in. 

The show was so much fun. Martha was so gracious and the staff was incredible. My pie was at the end of the table, it looked like they did their best to "fix" it to be presentable, and its only shown briefly once. Hopefully you will see me front and center clapping like a caffinated seal. We all had an amazing week together.

Thanks to Martha Stewart, her crew and the Affinia Hotel.

Special Thanks to Peter, Lynn, Lou, Nylie, and Lance for helping finance the trip. To Nancy for all your pie support and laughs and to all of the supporters out there who made this happen!