Who's Who: Pie Goddess Suzie Sidhu

Charming, warm and likable, award-winner Suzie Sidhu makes you love her and her pies before you’ve even had a bite.

How long have you been making pies? I have been doing this almost 25 years now. I started out – my aunt was making pies at a restaurant down in Auburn and she wanted to go to Reno for a week. She called me and asked “Will you come make pies for me so I can go to Reno?” And I thought, “Are you crazy? I’ve never made pies in my life.” So I went and made pies while she was gone. They weren’t the best, but they were sufficient. Then she wanted to go again, six months later, so I said “OK, I’ll do it again.” Shortly after that she had to have surgery and I ended up filling in for her for six weeks so I just kinda got better at it. Around that time we had a restaurant over in Buckley, my mom and I, [called] The Sweet Shop. That was 1987. My aunt quit the job in Auburn and came up here to work for my mom. We kinda kept job-sharing and eventually she just got burned out of it -- ready to retire.

She never had a passion for it the way I did. I always have fun playing with them, and decorating them. While [my aunt] was gone, I’d change something in one of the recipes and come up with a new pie.

Are all these your own recipes? You know, there’s nothing that I would really call my own because it’s hard to own a recipe. It always blows me away these people who think their recipes are secret. [My recipes] are all just simple basic recipes, a lot found in magazines. I can say I own them in the sense that I’ve changed them. That’s all you gotta do to own a recipe is change one ingredient. There are some that I’ve developed into completely different pies from what they were originally, like the peanut butter pie -- I spent 15 years probably morphing that pie to where I want it. I went through different variations on the chocolate top and played with the filling a couple times. Over the years, it changed and changed and changed. And then when we got here, I finally got it where I wanted it and good thing because it was right before I went to Florida to the pie contest. It was the first-place winner so obviously I got it right. That was two years ago.

Was this a national contest? Yes -- the National Pie Championship -- they do it every year down in Florida, I saw it on the Food Network channel. I’d never done a pie contest, so I was real excited about wanting to go do it but it was all the way in Florida -- how do you get all your stuff there? There were so many obstacles to doing it. The first year I really wanted to do it I just couldn’t really figure out how to make it happen. And then, one Saturday morning, this gal stopped by and we weren’t open but she wanted to get a couple pieces of pie. So I let her in and we got to talking and she started talking about Florida. I told her there was this pie contest in Florida and she said, “I have a condo – when you decide to go, gimme a call. We’ll set you up.” It turns out, and I didn’t know it at the time, but she was the daughter of some really good customers of mine – up visiting her parents. And I was wondering why she was being so nice to me, this total stranger but she turned out to be Bill and Patty’s daughter, who are real good customers of mine – who had moved to Florida also.

So when I did go down to the contest, their daughter, she was the one who picked me up at the airport; she was the one who collected mixers and bowls for me and things for me to use down there. She secured the condo. I was able to mail a box of stuff to her house. And when I got down there, she stayed with me the first day or so, she took me to the store and stuff like that. Then her folks came up and they were my people, man. They just got me everywhere I needed to go and just totally took care of me. Made it possible. I don’t know how I would have done it without them.

To raise the money to go, I took donations of $1 for a chance to win a pie. It was a lot of fun. The customers were so supportive and so behind me so it was nice that I was able to come home with a couple ribbons. I didn’t want to come home empty handed after that.

What categories did you win? I won both my pies in the ‘Other’ category. I had entered pies in every category.

How many varieties do you make? I’d say probably 50. Some are seasonal, but I have 15 to 20 that I try to have on hand at all times at the restaurant.

Which are the bestsellers? You know, it’s hard to pick bestsellers out of the group. But there are some. Peanut butter -- that one stands out. Coconut cream, blackberry, cherry almond crunch and the Tollhouse is real popular. It can change one day to the next which is most popular.

Where does the name “Pie Goddess” come from? The butterscotch lush is a real popular pie and that’s how I got my name. Years ago when we were over at The Sweet Shop, a lady was sitting here eating the butterscotch lush and I was waiting tables at the time and I stopped to ask how her pie was. She looked at me “Did you make this pie? You’re a Pie Goddess. I’d leave my husband for this pie.”

That’s how I ended up with the name. Back then, there were a couple gals running the Chamber of Commerce here in Enumclaw and I told them about that story and they just took it and ran with it.

Do you still eat pie? That’s a funny thing. Actually I had a piece of chocolate cream pie the other night. I’m not a pie person. I wasn’t raised with pie. It’s not my first choice of dessert. This is probably a good thing. I like it and I’ll eat it, but I wasn’t raised on pie. It took me a really long time to really understand the pie phenomenon. I didn’t get the big deal with the pie.

I’m not sure I really get it either. What is there to get? I’ll tell you what it is. Most people have an emotional attachment that comes from childhood. It’s all about the memories -- takes you back to grandma’s kitchen, or mom’s kitchen.

I think they’re pretty. Some people are just in awe of pie, because they think it’s so hard to make.

So, debunk the pie crust myth for me. Oh, good question. I have my own theory on that. Everybody grew up with that “… don’t handle your pie crust too much,” “don’t play with it”…

…"It better be cold?” And that is true. Well, the pie crust itself doesn’t need to be cold, but when you mix up your pie dough you wanna use ice water because it keeps the shortening or butter or whatever’s in there from breaking down and that helps keep your crust flaky when you bake it.

But the whole “don’t touch the dough too much” thing, I’ve decided, [has to do with] the amount of flour your work into your dough. What I’ve come to decide on this whole theory is that when I roll out my pie dough, I’m not skimpy with the flour when I roll it out, but I only roll it out once. I never re-roll pie dough because every time you crumble it, you’re working more and more flour into your dough and that’s going to make your crust tough.

Very good advice. They say the crust makes the pie. That’s what they say. I think it’s a whole package deal. It’s got to look pretty because if something doesn’t look good, you’re not going to wanna eat it. I’m all about presentation, and you know, it doesn’t matter how good the crust is. If the filling sucks, you’re outta luck. It’s a package deal.