Donnie Bishop -- The Pie Man
Do you know the
Palisade man?
The Palisade man, the
Palisade man
Who bakes a 4-pound
pie in a pan?
Well, come to Palisade
and meet the Pie Man
Donnie Bishop only recently became
known as “The Pie Man” around his hometown, but his reputation is spreading due
to friends, family, and his business cards that proclaim his art in baking
pies, especially, the “4 lb. fruit pie.”
“I have cooked all my life, just
for family and friends,” this 55-year-old bachelor explained modestly. “I
didn’t start baking so many pies until two years ago.”
After working for seventeen years,
Bishop lost his job in 2010, due “to the economy.” He didn’t want to move away, and his family home is
surrounded by peach and apple orchards and fruit stands, so he does seasonal
work for his neighbors and friends in their orchards and fruits stands.
It
wasn’t until summer of 2011 that everyone discovered his talent for baking.
“I took four or five pies up to the
fruit stand, and Mrs. Bikki (the owner of Farm of Liberty) put me to work. She
told me, ‘You make the best pies. You bake them. I will sell them.’
“I baked 126 peach pies in August
and September that year (2011),” he said smiling as big as one of his pie pans
as recalled the neighbor lady who cared so much about him after his mother
died. “She kinda adopted me as her third son. I do odd jobs for her all the
time.”
Last summer is when he started his
signature pie: the 4 lb. fruit pie, just to see if he could do it.
“I was working at a fruit stand.
I’d bake two or three pies, and sell them that day. I’d wait two or three days
and make some more. One day I put one on the scales; it weighed 3.87 pounds.”
He laughed at his experiment, “I thought, I
can improve that. I just kept stuffing and stuffing more fruit in there
until I had a pie that high, at 4 lbs even.” Now all of his fruit pies are
four-pound beauties.
Donnie had no formal cooking or
baking lessons, everything he learned from his mother. “I was five when my
mom taught me how to cook. She was a wonderful cook. She didn’t write down
recipes. She just kept them up here,” he pointed to his head, smiled and
continued. “She didn’t teach them by the book. You had to watch, watch very
carefully to catch all the little details.”
Donnie must have watched well because he has been
cooking and baking for 50 of his 55 years, but not professionally.
“I was always the cook when we (family and friends) went
to hunting camps. I would make up four or five pies, freeze ‘em, take ‘em and
bake them in a Dutch oven then bury them in the ground.” He looks up with a
twinkle in his eyes and laughingly said, “If I didn’t bring the pies, they
would shoot me.”
After two and half years, Donnie’s favorite remains
peach because, “I live in Palisade surrounded by the peach orchards, and
because I made so many that first summer.”
But he can make any kind of pie, and lots of them, it
seems. “This was the first year to take orders for the holidays. I made a total
of 65 pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas. “
Also, he added a variety of cream pies to his pie
making, which met with success from his friends around Palisade.
On National Pie Day, Jan. 23, Donnie surprised some of
his Lion’s Club members with cream pies. “That was the best coconut cream pie
I’ve ever eaten,” complimented Jane McFarland, Club secretary.
Donnie’s sister Cindy Kubicek prefers his variations on
the Peanut Butter pie, “It is good with whipped cream, but add a little
chocolate on top or carmel swirled in. Yumm, delicious.”
He has built up his menu to
13 pies, “a baker’s dozen,” but he doesn’t have a finalized list because he
likes to “improve them. Or at least I try to.”
He likes to customize the
pie according to what the person wants, or ” If some one gives me a recipe or
tells me about a favorite, I will try it, and give it my personal twist.”
The most unusual request he
has completed was for a green tomato pie.
“Some friends said they really wanted a green tomato pie
like their grandmother used to make. I made it, but they said it wasn’t quite
the same.
“When I saw the recipe, the
grandmother had used vinegar in it. I didn’t use vinegar, but I thought mine was
okay. It tasted just like apple.”
He
does more than pies. He has friends asking for his own jars of salsa, which he
makes from his own garden.
According to Cindy, his sister who
moved back home in 2010, “He does all the cooking here. All my brothers cook
better than me, but Donnie does it best.”
Donnie
Bishop has been a proud member of the Palisade Lion’s Club for the last five
years. A friend invited him to a meeting, and he decided to join because, “They
do a lot for people, the dues are much, and you don’t have to talk much.”
His friends knew he was a
cook, so they asked him to be a cook for almost every event they sponsor.
“I
make the chili and the potato soup for the Chili Supper fundraiser. Then for the Peach Festival, we meet
the night before at Alida’s Fruit to chop peaches and mix up the spices for the
non-alcohol margaritas to freeze to sell at our booth the next few days.
“And I especially like to
flip pancakes at the Pancake Breakfast.
I don’t bake for any stores or restaurants, or the Lion’s Club.”
He
is just as proud of his volunteer work in the community as his hobby of baking
pies. Donnie is always there when the Lions do fundraisers or distribute items,
such as the bicycles at Christmas or laptops to Taylor Elementary students, or
building new playground equipment near the Palisade pool.
Because of all the work he
does for the community, Donnie was recognized as “Palisade’s Lion of the Year”
and “Humanitarian of the Year” in May 2012 at their annual awards banquet.
Life was not all rosy for
The Pie Man before 2012. The main family house had been destroyed years before,
so he had moved into “the Creamery” building behind the homestead. A fire in
the fall destroyed that kitchen in his little house on his family’s original
plot of land, but he fixed it up himself, added additional space under a new
roof. Now he has more baking ovens and freezers ready to help with his growing
pie-making business next summer.
For Christmas he got a new cookbook.
These cold days and nights have
kept his home kitchen experimenting and “improving” as many of the 200 Award-winning Pie Recipes, he can,
and attempting to make all 200 pies while helping others in the community.
This 55-year-old bachelor is one of
those long-time, hard working neighbors who are taken for granted for his help
and kindness, until something happens in his life that brings out a hidden
talent that he has been doing all his life.
If you go craving a traditional
pie, “just like Mom used to make,” or wanting to try a new version customized
“like no other you’ve ever had” remember there are no signs of advertisements
or directions pointing to Donnie Bishop’s kitchen. Check at the local fruit
stands or orchards, ask for “The Pie Man,” and place your order.
Donnie Bishop has to make and bake
your pie personally.
He’s that kind of a nice guy.
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