VOTED FAN FAVORITE at "Let's Eat Local" Event
Ligaya Mishan wrote in The New York Times:
"Then there were the old-master pies, technical triumphs of underpainting and contour, by Alicia Scotti of Pie Country in the Bronx. A Key lime pie began with a crust of crumbled homemade gingersnaps, veiled with blackberry preserves and topped with Key lime custard and a billow of whipped cream. Fresh blackberries were buoyed on top, flecked with lime zest. Other crusts were archetypally buttery and strong enough to stand up to their fillings: strawberries and rhubarb, their sweet-tart collusion aided by orange zest and molasses; a trenchant lemon custard softened by fluffy meringue with burnished peaks and the faintest crunchy veneer. (Another more wintry pie in Ms. Scotti’s arsenal is the Nesselrode, the dodo bird of pies, an ornate construction of Bavarian cream, rum, chestnut purée and marrons glacé rarely sighted since its New York heyday in the 1940s.) Before going pro as a baker, Ms. Scotti spent nearly 25 years in marketing, which seems a loss to pie history." July 2013 |
The New York Times' Florence Fabricant wrote:
"It was the glass ceiling that drove Alicia Scotti into the kitchen full time. This 54-year old mother of two ... had a career in entertainment marketing for television, but finally quit to follow her love of baking. She grew up with 10 siblings in Rhode Island in a family that cooked and baked; with her own family, she cooks dinners from scratch most nights. She started her pie business a little over a year ago, baking to order at a commercial kitchen in the Bronx. Her pies, which are outstanding, include honey-pine nut, chocolate-walnut and pear-butterscotch from a list of more than three dozen. Her old-fashioned Nesselrode pie is not made in the style that was popular in New York — a gelatin custard studded with candied fruits — but with a chestnut cream filling, the original European recipe. She also bakes cookies, bars and cakes." October 2012 |
"... sour cherry pie ... so wondrous that it was like a Proustian reverie, all those flavors and textures bursting out as cleanly as if they'd been hatched this morning. I had forgotten your genius!"
-- A. Heilbut, a Pie Country devotee
-- A. Heilbut, a Pie Country devotee
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