Always Pie

Comedian Ron Funches has a controversial take on a dessert choice that goes beyond sweet potato versus pumpkin or the curve of black velvet or the Thin Mints = Newports stereotype brought up on the podcast My Mama Told Me.

Funches poses with great detail the purely superficial qualities of cake compared to the beautiful overconfidence of pie.

Ignoring the simple perfection of my Aunt Mary’s pound cake or one of those lemon drizzle beauties at every coffee shop, cakes frequently commercially depend on elaborate displays of icing and fondant and piping and sprinkles and dyes and shapes and stacking to convince you that they are worthy when, in most cases, they are shallow and flavorless structures to hold up the overly colorful and sweet decoration.

Too much makeup.

There are always exceptions and a sheet cake without icing is an amazing waste of calories but I’m all in.

And the carrot cake lightly drizzled in the right icing complements the unique richness of what’s underneath.

Great cakes indeed.

But cakes as ‘losers with no self respect trying to hide who they really are’ struck a nerve with me.

As a kid I started a family tradition in our house that we replaced birthday cakes with the giant cookie - specifically a cookie from The Great American Cookie Company from the Salem Mall. A chocolate chip cookie the size of an extra large pizza with very little writing because I don’t want the icing and cut into little bite sized squares like a great Cassanos Pizza and I apologize if they references get too Dayton but Jefferson Township for Life.

Also, not a great cookie, but you get the point.

So, yes, cake, in general is bad. Much like my beloved Oakland (stadium location is a tax thing) Raiders the silver and black uniform and pirating history hide the hurt and disappointment of a mediocrity season after season after season after season.

On the other hand, pie.

Round.

Flat.

A slice.

One level.

Already limited in physical form, the pie isn’t interested in tricking you into a relationship. You already know. Face value. WYSIWYG.

Pies without apology can arrive covered or uncovered.

Uncovered.

They proudly tell me that they are key lime and I respectfully respond with “No , thank you.”

No tricks. No bites. No hiding.

You are down with the concept or you aren’t.

And if it’s covered, it uses the same base that has a name the antithesis of a delicious tease - crust.

Crust is never used to identify positive. Lips, clowns, eyes. We want zero part of crust.

Except pie crust. The only crust.

Pie is telling you that it is covered in the opposite of icing to keep the uninformed away.

Pardon the occasional pick-me’s like cheesecake but we know.

Pie.

Why did this comparison strike such a nerve with me?

I went to engineering school where presentation meant your name legibly somewhere and eventually found myself in Nike design. There was icing everywhere I looked and I was embarrassed by my crusty work.

For years I worked on developing some type of respectable icing until I realized that some folks were totally happy with the humble pie I was serving. Crust and all.

Communicating beautiful ideas doesn’t require a PhD in art. Finding unique insights that you can weave into design that connect with real people that can be built with real materials is the job.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the best designers serve up amazing cake with all of the icing, but there were identical visuals that were flavorless by tech pack. Sometimes that cake is not as moist and Dr. Miami isn’t to blame.

And there were plenty of pies that you knew were bad.

But no one takes a bite out a bad pie twice.

You know.

No explanation needed.

But the decoration on a bad cake makes you question your eye-to-tongue communication. You find yourself wanting to believe the layers and colors and transparency and lens flare and sketch lines and background and storytelling and 20 pages to explain the fourth version of the Air Max Zoom Plus Mega TN Vapor with sprinkles.

And it doesn’t help that TV networks and social media celebrate the medley of bake-offs with only a small nod to “was it good?” at the end.

But you can’t taste a :15 reel so it doesn’t matter.

The designers who kept the icing to a minimum or just went straight crust are who I eventually followed because I honestly never got great at the icing part of the craft. I watched Aveni weave and Hoffer test and Chang layer.

The idea was the genius.

I already had that vibe when I began working with folks trained in fashion design at Yeezy working in apparel and accessories. There weren’t any decks or elaborate photoshops. There were a lot of quick collages and broken pencils.

Crust. And more crust.

Crumbling everywhere.

Not everything was good but you knew immediately. Nobody spent weeks building a rendering to present with supporting boards and a soundtrack.

Vibes.

I write this because I watch designers bury themselves over a rendering that AI can replace in :08 or get judged for not creating a spinning 3D hologram in infinite colors with photorealistic materials.

The number of cakes blown up 6 months before production to be successfully replaced by an amazing pie would baffle most industry outsiders. The process enjoys a good cake but most of what folks eat daily came from pie recipes.

Pie has vibes.

Pizza is a pie. Informative charts can be pie. Pie has a day. Pie has a life.

Cake can be appealing but cake is known to be easy.

I recommend the pie.

Thanks Ron.

Good things.