I have a small collection of pie baskets.
Some have lids, some not; one is decorated with small hand painted strawberries; another has a wooden tray stained with the juice of berries from a pie made long ago; all are square.
These treasures seem to show up most often at antique sales.
I was invited to tag along to a sale late last winter.
I wasn’t expecting to come home with anything but at the end of the first aisle, I looked over in the corner to see a beautiful old lidded basket.
Shyly and patiently peering out from beneath the rolling pins, pancake turners and other kitchen utensils displayed in her, I gently emptied her out and picked her up. She felt comfortably familiar.
“This is mine,” I said to the very kind woman who seemed delighted that I was so taken with the basket.
We settled up and I placed well worn handles over my arm.
The most surprising moment was when I was asked just what I would do with the basket.
She was put back into service that very afternoon carrying a still warm heritage apple pie to a potluck.
Perfect!
Kate – that’s a terrific pie basket. I use one just like it and have fitted it with an interior board so it can carry two pies, one atop the other. When a pie is good, one is not enough!
Beautiful blog!
Hi Alicia- Thanks for stopping by and the kind words. My basket has an interior board, too. You’re sure right about good pies. I’ve seen some photos of round Amish pie baskets that can carry three!
I love those old baskets as well. I like to imagine all the picnics and socials they might have been carried to over the years, all the good times they’ve seen. It’s hard not to be happy when a picnic, a basket, and a pie is involved!
Kate, I hear your voice in this basket piece! In all of the blog entries, which are beautifully, lovingly written, but your words breathe life into that
sweet old basket. Brava!