Pie Boxes

I was on Craigslist over the weekend looking for a small wall cabinet in which to keep jars of jam to display for sale at a local restaurant.  I didn't want to spend tons of money on it, but it needed to be sturdy enough and rustic looking to fit the place.  I found what I was looking for about an hour away in NH and picked it up on Saturday.  I'm psyched to get it cleaned up and (hopefully) on the wall of the restaurant.  Either that or it'll make a good farm stand display.

                                                      Consider this a "before" photo.










But even more exciting was the this find in Westbrook, Maine, not too far from here.  A guy was selling two antique Table Talk pie boxes.  Yep, pie boxes.  They were literally used to carry several pies, 16 each to be exact, from the Table Talk operation to places where the pies would be sold.  The guy had acquired them through a friend who thought he could figure out something to do with them, but he couldn't find an appropriate purpose.  They don't fit sheets of paper well, so office use was not right, and the actual shelves do not come out, so putting anything taller than, well, a pie, wouldn't do.  He was psyched to learn that I might actually use these to carry pies, or at least to keep pie plates in.  When he saw the glean in my eye when I finally saw the boxes, he said, "Wow, you must really like to bake pies."  Now, I do like to bake pie, and I do intend to (try to) sell some over the summer, but 16 pies, or 32 pies?  That's a lot of pie.  We'll see.