Vehement Opinions.

Even though our fourth birthday has come and gone, I still find myself in a deep dive into some PJP nostalgia.  And you know what we were doing four years ago today?  FOLDING BABY PIE BOXES FROM SCRATCH.  Yeah, it appears the only baby pie boxes we could locate at the time were flat packed and required a degree in architecture before inserting tab A into slot B.  Gulp. As you can imagine, I was all sorts of stabby about it at the time.  And frankly, I still am.  Who sells flat packed 6x6x3 boxes...because those boxes are TOTAL GARBAGE.  Though, I suppose I was the one dumb enough to buy them until we folded 100 or so of them and I then scoured the Internet for some sort of non-folding baby pie boxes and paid more than we could afford because can you even put a price on your sanity?

(As a side note, we still buy 12x12x6 boxes flat packed and assemble those because no one sells a lock corner box in that size.  Thankfully, we sell significantly less of those than the baby pies.  That said, how does modern America not produce a non-fold-it-from-scratch box in all sizes?  Do you ever wonder that?)

(As a second side note, I wouldn't have believed you four years ago if you told me I would eventually have vehement opinions on lock corner boxes.  And that I would be proud of those opinions, because someone has to take a stance in the bakery box arena.  I suppose.)

But whatever.  Today we made well over 150 baby pies, 50 nine-inch pies, and more Jelly Jar pies than worth mentioning.  And right now those jars are in UPS trucks and planes traveling all over the country, including one shipment to someone celebrating their 100th birthday...

I don't know Aunt Evelyn or her niece Sunnie, but we were beyond honored to send a package to help celebrate such a special occasion.  And when you think about how much the world has changed since Aunt Evelyn was born in 1918, it's rather remarkable, isn't it?  In 1961, she would have been my age now...even then too early to really contemplate a world where two women can own a growing business and talk about it in a forum read all over the world.  (Well, I guess in Fried Green Tomatoes, Idgie and Rose owned a successful business...but they didn't have the Internet.  And we've never killed an ex-husband and cooked him in some barbecue.  So really, that has nothing to do with this.)

Happy Birthday, Evelyn.  (Also, that shipping box?  Flat packed and hand assembled by us.  True story.)