Menage à Trois Bingo

Three fabulous women among our framily have birthdays in March: tempesttea, reannon, and lavendargrrl. To celebrate, Tammie put together the Triple Birthday Pie and Cider Crawl. First stop was to be PieTown Stompin Grounds in Alton IL, as seen on Feasting on Asphalt. Sadly, we had just reached my favorite bridge when we got a call from sungazing. "Um, we're standing outside the PieTown and it's closed. People inside doing renovation."

So we went directly to the second stop, Cane Bottom My Just Desserts, a mile or so down the road. This in itself was already a modification from the original plan, as we had intended to visit the Elsah location but it had closed. However, Cane Bottom, or My Just Desserts, or whatever you call it, turned out to be a lovely little place in the first floor of what appeared to be a converted old house. They were a little taken aback to be descended upon by a group of fourteen people, but were quite friendly and accommodating all the same.

The menu is a chalkboard. The left side lists all the currently-available pies, and the righthand side lists sandwiches and soups and such. Our waitress warned us that we should order our pie at the same time as our food, as they erase items from the board willy-nilly.

The day's special soup was "Springtime Asparagus", and as big asparagus fans Tammie and I had to have that. Choosing a pie was a bit more difficult, involving much negotiation. We ended up ordering the "Mrs. Ledbetter": a baked chocolate pie with coconut and pecans, akin in some ways to a German Chocolate cake and in others to a pecan pie.

The soup was a delightful surprise: it was not creamy in any way, but instead had asparagus and rice in a light broth. And the pie was also wonderful: thick chocolate filling laced with coconut and pecan topping. My only quibble might be with the crust: a touch on the hard side and not as flaky as I might like.

Many items disappeared from the board while we ate and even while we ordered, but toward the end a new item jumped on: Radically Cherry. So tempesttea, lavendargrrl and I shared a piece of that as well. It had the most delicate lattice top I've ever seen on a pie, and the filling was lusciously tart.

Next we went sightseeing. At Jamie's suggestion, we visited the Robert Wadlow statue and took lots of pictures there.

Then we drove up the Great River Road to Pere Marquette State Park, stopping here and there for more pictures; none of mine are worth sharing. I did get a few decent shots at the park, though. The Mississippi is a couple feet above flood stage right now.

After hanging out at the park and its lodge for a couple hours, we headed back down the river to the Rotten Apple for dinner and the aforementioned cider. Between the eight of us who remained (various people having left earlier in the day), we tried several of the available ciders. The universal favorites were Woodchuck Dark and Dry and Wyder's Raspberry Cider.

Food was quite the tasty. I ordered us an appetizer of Pig Wings (barbecued pork shanks) and they were very quickly made to disappear. Hush puppies were almost as big a hit, though Tammie complained that hers was underdone; everyone else seemed to have no such issue. Tammie and I ordered the crab cake appetizer as a meal, and she supplemented hers with Cream Cheese Grits with Tasso Gravy (none for me, thanks, I am not a grits fan) and I supplemented mine with a cup of the thickest gumbo I may have ever seen. Chicken and andouille, this one, with nary a sea critter to be found, but it was quite zingy and tasty and I ate every speck.

We all agree that the Rotten Apple should be added to the go-again restaurant list, though it may not be a common destination given the distance.