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Rachel Pennington

The Pie Chest will turn off its ovens on March 14, but Rachel Pennington says she will continue to bake for special projects, and annual events such as Pi Day, Thanksgiving, and possibly a monthly subscription box of treats. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith.

Rachel Pennington

Owner: The Pie Chest, thepiechestcville.com

A spirit of togetherness

“I cook because I have to. I have no other choice. Deep within me resides the desire to please others through a soul-level-comforting pleasing of the palate. 

“Therein is the secret to a good life. Eating, drinking, and being merry. Through this we commune with one another in a spirit of togetherness, remembering the past, enjoying the present, and creating the future.”

Bye day

“I own The Pie Chest and have no formal culinary training. That is quite the story! Eight years ago we opened on March 14, 2015 at 9:26am (3.1415926), and this coming Pi Day will be our last day in the Fourth Street shop. I am very much looking forward to bespoke baking and transitioning away from the daily capitalistic slog.”

Supplied photo.

Something other

“When I was 6 years old, I learned that love tasted like strawberries. Specifically, strawberries freshly picked from Emmett and Lorene Coleman’s backyard patch in Oak Hill, West Virginia. Firm in my small hand, tugged and torn from the stem, smelling of the sweetness of fresh earth and the red heart-berry inside. 

“As an adopted child, the Colemans were my ‘pretend’ grandparents (the parents of my mother’s best friend). Along with my Nanny, Lois, I was granted my very first taste and scent memories: strawberries, honey, freshly baked cookies.

“Outside of baking cookies as a child, I did not have much culinary experience. Something ‘other’ has always been at work behind the scenes, a joining together of three grandmothers: an adoptive one, a pretend one, and an unknown one.

Tied together

“One of the first pies that I mastered for The Pie Chest was strawberry rhubarb. In the strawberry rhubarb pie, there is a triple-braided cord that cannot be severed. 

“When I was working on my pie crust recipe early in my baking career, I found Nanny’s version buried in a box, complete with grease stains and blurred ink. I used it as a template, a foundation, and each spring for the past eight years, I painstakingly make a filling with strawberries from local patches, joining them with fresh rhubarb grown in Appalachia.

“A few years ago, my birth sister discovered me via Ancestry.com after looking for me for her entire life. I have learned about my paternal grandmother, Dorothy, an avid and award-winning baker and cook, and I realize she has always been a part of me, the invisible ink, so to speak, writing words I have only begun to read.

“In this single pie, these three women come together, much the way a pie does—a foundation, a filling, a topping, baked together with the binding of butter and love.”

For our ongoing series Why Do You Cook?, C-VILLE Weekly asks area food and drinks folks what motivates them to clock in every day. If you would like to be considered for this column, please email tami@c-ville.com.

By Tami Keaveny

Arts Editor Tami Keaveny has navigated the world of arts and entertainment through a variety of marketing and public relations jobs. She has worked at WBCN, BAM Music magazine, Bonnie Simmons Management, Bill Graham Presents, Tickets.com, ClearChannel Entertainment, WordHampton Public Relations, Starr Hill Presents, and SMG before taking the desk as Arts Editor at C-VILLE Weekly. She calls San Francisco State University her alma mater and Charlottesville, Virginia her home. Hobbies include: amateur food photography, junk food culture (Food Seen), orchid killing, offensive cross-stitch, vintage glassware collecting, and wine with everything.