B. Rodell

Meat pie at Bronzed Aussie

Despite being a food-obsessed culture, Australia has no true defining cuisine of its own. Massive immigrant populations (Asian, Middle Eastern, Greek and Italian), as well as the country's wealth of seafood, have influenced burgeoning New Australian restaurants, but the traditional food of Australia is basically British food: steak, sausages, fish and chips, boiled veggies, etc.

Australia can claim a few things as its own. Because much of the Italian immigration to Australia happened after the invention of the espresso machine (unlike Italian-Americans, who mainly came to the United States before the machine was invented), many Italians brought machines with them, and Australia has its own coffee culture that has developed over the last 100 years. It's close to Europe in many ways but also distinct.

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Photo: Rachael Narins

Pie (the kind with an e) at Pie n' Burger.

Still dreaming of those idyllic high school days of talent shows, math problems and after-school slices of pie? Yeah, we're not either, but this Thursday night at Machine Project, you can have your strawberry rhubarb pie and eat it too -- at the first-ever American Pi-dol talent show and pie-eating competition. This marathon-like series of pi(e)-themed competitions was dreamed up by Sarah Williams, the Echo Park-based pie maker who specializes in seasonal pies and tarts with her catering project, Fruit & Flour.

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lieslree via flickr

Peach pie

Last week we asked for suggestions about what might be the most underrated pie in Los Angeles. We took stock of the answers, picked the ones that A) Seemed worthy, and B) Seemed possibly underrated (sorry, folks, Apple Pan doesn't really fit the bill), and came up with this list of five pies. Now it's your turn to vote on which pie gets to the final round.

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St0rmz via flickr

Pie

Well, we've had our fun with underrated burgers. But it's time to move on. There's plenty of other underrated food in this town, we just know it. And what better to focus on during this, the most pie-laden of seasons, than pie? We want to know which pies (the sweet kind, not the savory or pizza pie variety) deserve accolades that have eluded them thus far.

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Photo Courtesy of Eric Moore, Friend of Obama, Occidental College Class of '83 (One-time use only)

Barack Obama

We may not have access to Obama's college transcripts (nor do we wish to, frankly) but we have uncovered a different fun fact from our president's college years at Occidental -- his favorite Thanksgiving pie recipe.

According to the school's website, Paul Carpenter, who was Obama's freshman-year roommate at Oxy, found our one-day president without a place to go on Thanksgiving way back in 1979, so he invited Obama to spend the holiday with his folks. "We had turkey day dinner with my family in Claremont," Carpenter told Occidental. "All those memories are fond."

It was there Obama had mama Alice Carpenter's Coconut Chiffon Pumpkin pie, which reportedly floored him.

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Good Girl Dinette

Peach Pie

Diep Tran, chef-owner of Highland Park's Good Girl Dinette, isn't taking the day off on Labor Day -- instead, she turning her restaurant into a one-day-only pie shop, which will offer homemade pies baked with local produce. You know, just in case her customers need something to serve after their barbecues, picnics or cookouts.

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Nicole O'Connor

Pastries at Huckleberry

Is there a more enjoyable way to support KCRW than eating some pie? This Thursday, August 2, Huckleberry in Santa Monica will be teaming up with "Good Food" host Evan Kleiman to serve a family-style, three-course menu created by chef and co-owner Zoe Nathan.

The spread includes an a pre-dinner snack of spiced nuts, heirloom tomato crostatas with local goat cheese and arugula, free range fried chicken with sweet corn succotash, and of course, a special old-fashioned peach pie (made from one of Nathan's favorite recipes) with Sweet Rose Creamery vanilla ice cream for dessert.

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Rachael Narins

Philippe the Original's apple pie

Pie can become a fixation. For some, it's more than just something to eat, it's an experience. For us, it was a challenge. We polled and questioned, consulted the experts, prodded and called and narrowed our list to a daunting 25 local pies to sample. For our own sanity, this was limited to standard sweet pies that you can get in single portions -- either a slice or as a mini-pie -- and they had to come from a restaurant or storefront. Pies that are locally made and delivered whole were not included.

What makes a good pie? First, the crust, a tricky bit of culinary wizardry: It should be a rich golden color, not tough and should have a lovely flavor. Our ideal crust is rolled out thinly but evenly, and still sturdy enough to hold its shape. It should not be partly dissolved or tough as cardboard. The filling should be sweet, not cloying and never runny, gummy, rubbery or industrially gelled. Those are the hallmarks of bad pie. Nothing like that is on this list.

Of course the best pie in Los Angeles is always going to be the one you baked yourself, ideally just out of the oven. But if that isn't on your agenda, here are our picks for the 10 Best Pies in L.A.

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Jeanne Kelley

strawberry rhubarb pie

Even though Angelenos enjoy cookouts year-round, tradition (and marketing) tells us that Memorial Day weekend kicks off the official outdoor cooking season. What better way to celebrate the beginning of summer, end a barbecue, and to mark a holiday originated to commemorate fallen civil war soldiers, than with pie?

The perfect late spring/early summer, old-fashioned pie is definitely filled with strawberries and rhubarb. Rhubarb is one of those weird vegetable-cum-fruit plants that, despite being delightful, can't help but come off as a little archaic -- it has toxic leaves, after all. But pair the long pink stalks with strawberries and you've got a sublime combo. Rhubarb gives body, texture and earthy tartness to strawberries. Strawberries lend color, juice and sweet floral fruity-ness to rhubarb.

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amazon.com

Those summer berry and fall holiday pies may get all of the seasonal baking attention, but spring really is the ideal time to Pie It Forward, isn't it? There are those rainy weekends best left to indoor dough rolling, the partly cloudy ones that aren't quite ready for berry picking outings, and those between-seasons sort of days when you really need a slice of Yin Yang cheesecake (in matcha tea and mango form, p. 132) to pull it all together.

Or, should you be more of a tart, torte or galette weekend baker, Gesine Bullock-Prado's new cookbook has plenty of blueberry brown butter and macadamia-coconut-caramel ideas -- even a few savory ones like potato sausage pie and Bavarian calzones filled with chicken, Camembert cheese, lingonberry preserves and aioli with a touch of maple syrup (!) for an added sweet kick.

Yeah, in case you're wondering, Bullock-Prado runs a lot of marathons. And yes, Sandra Bullock is her sister (A Hollywood pie diet! Now that would be fun).

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