Dangerously Delicious Bliss

It all started with a bad day at the office. A really, really, really bad day. There was nothing for it but one answer: pie.

So we conned one of our office staffers into making the walk with us from the canyons of Baltimore's office jungle up to 1036 Light Street, Federal Hill, to make a strategic raid on Dangerously Delicious Pies. We had heard of Dangerously Delicious, we had asked friends who were full of raves, we'd been to the website...but until yesterday, we hadn't tasted.

Here's how bad the day had been: we bought every whole pie in the case. And most of the partial pies from which only a slice or two had been taken. Since we hadn't phoned ahead, that "only" amounted to six pies - but we're a small office and six pies were plenty for us, plus we shared with another small office up the street which was also reportedly having a bad day.

First, the pies: transportingly, life-alteringly, chase-your-blues-away, forget-all-about-your-yukky-clients fabulous. Fab. U. Lous. Here is what I had brought in for lunch yesterday: a fat-free sundried tomato wrap, 3 ounces of water-packed tuna, a handful of Romaine, and a Stonyfield Farms fat-free blueberry yogurt. Here is what I ate for lunch yesterday: six pieces of pie. Six. Pieces. Of. Pie.

Dangerously Delicious makes pies both sweet and savory, though we were only lucky enough to sample one of the savory ones -- a delicious sausage and cheese pie that was the favorite of the office we shared with, from which it disappeared in 5 minutes flat.

But it was the sweet pies that called out our name. And here we have to pause a moment and give the maddest of all possible props to the indescribably delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie. That pie was, in a word, stacked. Bursting with beautiful red fruit through a blissfully light, flaky crust, and finished with a beautiful little heart cutout on top, the strawberry-rhubarb pie was so awesome as to win our personal award for Best Pie Ever Eaten in a Lifetime. Our office really looked askance at us when we said, gasping, and with tears, "Go for the strawberry- rhubarb first. Really, seriously." The poor rhubarb!! How people sneer at rhubarb! Looks like weird alien pink celery, tastes just like strawberries, can't be eaten raw, has to be cooked -- people don't get it with rhubarb! But just one taste and everyone in our office, to a person, was firmly convinced. That pie was the bomb.

Close seconds: apple (what's not to like) and the "full custom custard" pie that Dangerously Delicious has gleefully dubbed "white trash creme brulee." With a crunchy top, this egg custard pie was fabulous on its own - but what we playfully enjoyed doing was putting some apple and some custard pie on the same plate, and commingling them on the fork; we thought the resulting whole was even greater than the sum of its parts. Lemon chess pie rounded out our bill, was a beautiful pie to look at, fun in the mouth, full of bright yellow color and tons of lemony taste.

Dangerously Delicious bakes what it feels like baking each day, based on the baker's whim du jour and the freshness of the ingredients. Here's the lineup: pecan, full custom custard, rhubarb (either standing boldly alone, or in combination with other fruits), blueberry, lemon chess, chocolate chess, coconut chess, peach (OMG, we can't wait for peach season), sweet potato, mobtown brown (pecan plus chocolate and caramel!!!!!!), mixed berry, apple, derby , NC apple crumb, caramel apple crumb, key bridge (haha!) lime, pumpkin, coconut chocolate chess, chocolate peanut butter chess, lemon meringue, banana custard, raspberry, blackberry, cherry, mixed berry; and the savories - bacon, onion and gruyere; broccoli and cheddar; roasted veg; ham and swiss; spinach and goat cheese; asparagus, steak and chili; steak, mushroom, onion and gruyere; chicken; pork bbq; and steak and mixed veg.

The shop is a ton of fun as well, in a very funky, tattooed-and-pierced-everything kind of way. There's seating in the back, pie and coffee in the front, and really nice staff at work. They ship nationally and are available not only in the store but also at Bluehouse (who doesn't love Bluehouse, huh?) and Rocket to Venus and hope to be coming to a pie hole near you soon. They deserve all the success possible. We loved their vibe, and even more than that, we loved their pie. The shop was super clean when we were in there and we left, toting six pies down the hill and back into the concrete canyon, smiling all the way. It didn't even matter what else happened in our day after that!

We love to see places like this one succeed here in our beer-and-crabs hardscrabble town. Rodney Henry, owner and baker, is a tall, inked, bald one-man pie wizard and we're hereby adding him to the pantheon of cool contributors to our city's dessert scene. We hear there's an outpost in Bethany as well, which seems like a natural fit; now, everything at Dangerously Delicious feels extremely homemade in the best sense of the word, but better.