What to Know
- KCRW's Good Food PieFest & Contest
- April 28 at UCLA's Royce Quad; a tasting ticket will be available for purchase for those attendees who'd simply like to try pie (RSVP on the site for "early access")
- Enter your pie for $15; registration closes on April 21 (or whenever the slots fill up)
Somewhere between the holiday season, when mince pies and meat pies decadently reign, and the scorching celebrations of summertime, the time of lighter and luscious fruit pies, there is April.
With that tentative introduction you might, at first glance, believe that April is a month that is mostly pie-less, at least compared to the pie-saturated stretches that come before and after.
But we must politely "au contraire" you right there, for a prominent pie party will take place in the fourth month, proving that springtime is high time for pie and some truly creative pies at that.
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It's the KCRW Good Food PieFest & Contest, a luscious long-running lark that is very pie-minded. (Yes, we've already used "luscious" twice and we may use it a third time if it feels right.)
The popular event, which finds local bakers putting their best pies forward as fans try out the bounty of desserts, forkful by forkful, is returning on April 28.
The place? Pie-making people and pie-eating people will want to gather at UCLA's Royce Quad.
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But the next place we need to think about, before we consider where the actual festival will occur, is your kitchen, specifically your oven.
For while the pie-eating people don't need to get a giddy-up letting the PieFest organizers know they'll be there, the pie makers do. If you want to enter a pie, the fee is $15.
Registration will close well ahead of the event, on April 21, if all the spots don't fill up, which they likely will.
We can't tell a pie, er, lie: This is a popular event, on both sides of the pie display table.
Before you get experimenting, dreaming, and baking, however, consider the 2024 categories: Savory and cream pies are among those goodies that are off the list — repeat, you'll want to skip making these — but the line-up of good-to-go confections is lengthy, with hand pies, apple crumble, and Lineage Pies, which celebrate the baker's heritage, on the roster.
Knowing the permitted ingredients is also important, too.
If your whole pie-in-the-sky plan is to show up at the Royce Quad on the final Sunday in April and taste, taste, taste away, keep in mind that a tasting ticket will be required, all to make sure "there are enough slices to go around."
You can RSVP now for "early access" to the tasting tickets; both bakers and pie-ficionados, which are like aficionados but for pie, should read everything about entering, tasting tickets, and the PieFest details on this site.
