As American as apple pie, or huckleberry or blueberry, or key lime piled high with whipped cream, or perhaps pumpkin glazed with glossy caramel? How about dark chocolate pudding enveloped in whipped meringue? Or pecan with the subtle warmth of New Mexican red chile, or nuts with bourbon, apples, carrots and a touch of maple syrup?
Pie-Eyed and Happy About It!
We brought together 10 passionate pie people at the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum for our first-ever TABLE Magazine pie bake-off. Half of our 10 were pros and half were home bakers. They came from all backgrounds and walks of life, united in pastry. Gil Garduño, founder of New Mexico Gastronome blog and website, and one of our state’s most astute eaters, joined me to judge this jewel-like collection of pastries to award the Pros’ Choice Awards. A small group of the public were able to select People’s Choice winners at this pie-palooza, too. Enjoy the photos, or make your own life a little sweeter by re-creating one of their recipes.
Red Chile Pecan Pie by Sara Breckenridge-Sproat
Pros’ Choice First Place
Sara Breckenridge-Sproat’s winning pie was pecan! She scented it with red chile in a buttery crust enhanced with sweet little pastry autumn leaves. Her husband David loves heat with sweet. By adding our local hot stuff to her classic holiday pecan pie, and this winning combo was born.
Sara retired to Santa Fe in 2017 after three decades of military service as an Army nurse with the rank of Colonel. She met her husband, an Army family medicine practitioner, in her first post, at Fort Lewis in Washington State. When Sara married, a savvy friend implored her to master pie crusts. Her friend stated that they weren’t as tough to prepare as they were made out to be. And that the results were a heck of a lot more delicious than tasteless frozen grocery store versions. Sara has been baking her own buttery pie shells ever since, along with cookies, and a crusty sourdough too. She doubled down on baking during Covid and says that the couple hasn’t bought commercial bread since 2020.
Apple Pie by Susan Farrington Schepens
A Santa Fe friend whose young son Susan Farrington Schepens babysat saw our call for bakers and urged Susan to enter. Susan has been baking since her childhood in Saratoga Springs, NY, where her mom and grandmother were her baker models. In high school, she enrolled in a “trades” curriculum her junior and senior years, and loved the baking coursework. After relocating to Knoxville, TN, she took more pastry classes for the sheer enjoyment of it, later passing that love on to her two daughters, Erika and Kara. Initially, it was Kara who showed the most interest and talent for baking.
When a horrible accident took Kara’s life, Susan abruptly stopped baking, because the associated memories were simply too painful. After Susan and her husband moved to Santa Fe nine years ago, she had an inkling that a return to baking might help her heal. She took some classes in Santa Fe Community College’s Culinary Arts Program and, indeed, did find making pie crust therapeutic. Her favorite pies are autumnal ones like pecan and the beautifully domed apple pie she made for us. Susan notes that her daughter Erika has now become an avid baker of bread. Susan feels blessed that the family tradition will indeed continue on.
Autumn Harvest Pie by Dr. Ron Brunitsky
Dr. Ron Bronitsky grew up in Albuquerque helping his mother bake. Some 30 years ago, he entered a blueberry pie in the New Mexico State Fair’s baking competition. He was stunned and delighted when he won a blue ribbon. That hooked him on baking competitions. He was a contestant on the Netflix series, Blue Ribbon Baking Championship. Ron says his goal was to avoid being the first person eliminated. He accomplished that, and then some.
The retired pulmonary critical care specialist mentions that his science background has played a role in his continual experimentation with baking formulas and ingredients and their proportions. He created his “autumn harvest” pie just for this event. It was popular for its creative and delicious mix of nuts, apples, carrots, maple syrup, and more. His flaky crust earned praise, too. Ron is also the reigning grand champion, three years running, of the fall Pie Town Pie Festival.
Chocolate Pudding Pie by Brad Furry
People’s Choice First Place
Brad Furry was an impressionable 11-year-old when a chocolate mousse in Paris opened his mind to the world of cooking and baking. He had been sent by his parents from Durango to live with some French friends for the school year. It was a rough adjustment initially, given his age and the wildly different environments. However, he credits that year with being the best life-altering experience ever. The mother in his French family taught him to make her deeply dark and satisfying mousse. He has used her recipe ever since.
Now a Santa Fe realtor and a rancher with his husband Bradyn, Brad often bakes for his four sons as well as friends who look forward to his Christmas Bundt cakes, in particular. His “rich, decadent, indulgent” chocolate pudding pie with stunning swirled meringue has a charming story behind it. At the time that Bunny Terry was stepping down as longtime chair of the New Mexico Cancer Foundation, Brad heard her reminiscing about the chocolate pie her late mother used to make. He resolved to make a similar pie to thank Bunny for her years of volunteer work. That the pie had its genesis in the mousse of decades ago made it all the sweeter. We were thrilled he recreated it for TABLE.
Apple Pie by Missy Auge
Missy Auge is employed in the hospitality trade but, not as a baker or food professional. She’s currently the wine director working at Bishops’ Lodge Resort in Tesuque. Credit a father who loved apple pie, and a sister whose Rio Rancho fruit trees are always prolific, for Missy’s version of the all-American favorite. Growing up in Belen, she also had two grandmothers who baked, one of whom was a local home economics instructor.
Missy moved to New York after college but found her way back to New Mexico in her mid-20s. She had a several-year run as owner of modern Italian eatery, Tanti Luce, in downtown Santa Fe. Her chef at the time was very “into” wine, which became her passion as well. In her professional life today, she’s certified through the Court of Masters as Wine Director/Sommelier for Bishop’s Lodge. Tasters praised her pie’s balance of sweet and tart fruit flavors, along with its flaky crust. Her apple pie was described as a “classic autumn comfort — simple, elegant, rustic.”
Pumpkin Pie by Myra Dalland
Pros’ Choice First Place
Unlike most of our bakers, Myra Dalland was not drawn to baking through family, or even early in life. She was in her 20s in New York and had taken a restaurant server job. On several occasions, when the chef was working on new dishes, he asked the staff to taste when he thought “something” was missing. She tasted and rather meekly made a few suggestions. The chef thought she was right in each instance and eventually exclaimed that she should become a cooking consultant.
When she moved to Tesuque a decade ago, she started a business making cookies that were gluten-free and low on the glycemic index, but high in flavor and texture. She eventually expanded into individual-size chicken-green chile pies as well as dessert pies. She sold them through Santa Fe area grocery stores until her recent retirement. The judges particularly loved the caramel-pecan topping she added to her pumpkin pie.
Key Lime Pie by Maribel Ortiz
People’s Choice First Place
Maribel Ortiz credits her mentor, former Santa Fe Bite owner, Bonnie Eckre, with teaching her all about baking. “Mari” started with the well-known eatery as a busser and food runner but was fascinated with the array of pies and cakes that Bonnie whipped up in the kitchen while husband John cooked the Bite’s famous burgers. By the time the Eckres transferred ownership to current partners, Mari’s husband Armando and Angela Mason, Mari had fully taken over the baking.
Mari and Armando first met while working at La Fonda on the Plaza. They had both come to Santa Fe from Coahuila, Mexico but she laughs that she was a country girl and he, a city kid. Today, they have a daughter who also works with them at Santa Fe Bite. Mari particularly likes making cream pies, such as the key lime dream she whipped up for our competition. Judges found it “perfection in sight,” and “nicely tart, the essence of key lime pie.”
Huckleberry-Merlot Pie by Rebecca Freeman
Growing up in Chicago, Rebecca Freeman first cooked and baked with her Italian grandmother. At an early age, she decided to tackle a bûche de noël as a baking project, and the satisfaction she received from that experience hooked her. She graduated with a Culinary Arts degree from Kendall College in Chicago and staged at restaurants there including Alinea. Rebecca came to Santa Fe in 2012 for what was to be a three-day visit with her sister. While in town, she landed a job at Geronimo and never went back. She also worked as a pastry chef at Compound restaurant and later at The Club at Las Campanas. In 2023, Rebecca was honored as the American Culinary Federation’s National Pastry Chef of the Year. These days, she’s Executive Pastry Chef for both Coyote Café and Santacafé.
Rebecca loves making pies at home and always bakes a fruit-filled one for her husband’s birthday. She chose to flavor her huckleberry pie with merlot wine for its red fruit-forward notes. Judges especially complimented the pie’s “magnificent” butter crust.
Raspberry Rhubarb by Keegan Crumpacker
Keegan Crumpacker grew up in the family business. His mom Amy started Crumpacker’s in the mid-1980s, first making pies and pastries to sell at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market. For a large portion of his childhood, the family kitchen was also the certified commercial kitchen for the business, so he thought it perfectly normal to grow up with a restaurant-style range and walk-in freezer. The buttery pie dough recipe, the crimp of its edge, and the topping of turbinado sugar are all signatures that date back to Keegan’s great-grandmother. The raspberry-rhubarb pie he made for this event was one of the very first pies the family created for market because they had a huge rhubarb patch, and several farmers raised raspberries, which made a beautiful rosy filling together.
Keegan works as a Cooking with Kids educator and coordinator and has run the bakery business now for nearly two decades. He sells the pies — both sweet and chicken with green chile — breads, cookies, preserves, cold-pressed juices and more at the Saturday Santa Fe Farmers’ Market, and during the summer months, at the Thursday Los Alamos Farmers’ Market and Albuquerque’s Sunday Railyard Market. Amy still helps out baking pies by hand a couple of days each week, and now Keegan’s teenage daughter is getting into baking, too.
Blueberry Pie by Karina Lira
As a small child growing up in Santa Fe, Karina Lira watched her mother make elaborate cakes for quinceañeras and weddings. She was often enlisted as the dishwasher for those projects. As Karina grew up, she got to help with the preparations, which led her to enroll in the Santa Fe Culinary Arts Program, where she recently graduated. In the interim, she has worked as a pastry chef at Four Seasons Rancho Encantado, and now at Harry’s Roadhouse, where she makes scads of layer cakes and pies, like the luscious blueberry she prepared for us. When she’s not baking, she loves hiking around her Rio Rancho neighborhood with her husband and their dog, Deebo.
Special thanks to the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum for hosting us as they celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Spanish Colonial Arts Museum.
Story by Cheryl Alters Jamison
Photos by Tira Howard
Food Styling by Julia Platt Leonard
Shot on location at the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum
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