Local & Not So Local Favorites: Mom's Apple Pie Bakery & Julian Pie Company

While Brian's main Valentine's Day treat was a couple dozen molasses cookies, I wanted to follow that up with a good excuse to try out a nearby pie shop.  We finally headed over to Occoquan to have a bite at Mom's Apple Pie Bakery there.

In a town with limited parking, this locale is blessed with a corner lot with lots of parking, making it easy for a quick stop.

We headed there on a Sunday afternoon, and were tempted by not only pie packaged by the slice or by the whole pie, but also baked goods, jars of candy and gelato.  There is also a great selection of drinks, from specialty sodas to milk.  Or, you can step into the wine shop section of the store for beer or wine (or cheese).

Definitely somewhere we can add to our list of local favorites.

Though they are about 2700 miles apart, this visit brought to mind our favorite pie shop, Julian Pie Company in Julian, California.  I think we discovered this pie shop from a suggested itenerary we found in the front of an atlas, almost ten years ago! It wasn't quite the same feeling to sit outside sharing pie with our two little boys in the Virginia cold, but Brian may have enjoyed his coffee more this time.

Back in the fall of 2005, during our second visit.

A Taste of Our New Town: Dale City Farmers' Market

We are finally settled into Virgina, or NOVA (Northern Virginia) as everyone refers to it.  I have been here two weeks though, and still haven't quite figured out where we are.  Having one car is finally starting to become a problem, because we want to go explore!  There are some car pool options for Brian, and some train options for us, and we may have to start taking advantage of them now that the moving-in process is fairly complete.

One place we did get to on foot though, was the Dale City Farmers' Market.  We woke up on Sunday excited to forget about unpacking boxes for a while and head out for a market.  Theo wanted to find apples (he doesn't quite understand seasons yet), and I just wanted to get a feel for the area.  So even though it was drizzling rain most of the morning, we waited for a pause in the rain and headed out.  It turned out to be a little farther than we thought, and ended up being hot, humid, and sunny by the time we walked back, but it was still a memorable little trip.

The back aisle, there was another aisle this long on the other side.

The market is probably one of the bigger outdoor ones I've been to, and had basically any kind of spring fruit or vegetable you could possibly want.  I was pretty amazed at all the variety.  Throw in some cheese, bakery, kettle corn, and wood fired pizza options, and you could leave with most of your taste buds satisfied.

Theo chose yellow green beans.  And ate them.

I was very intrigued by the purple bell peppers... maybe next time.

Theo picked out and paid for most of the produce.  It's great to see him work with cash (though several did accept credit card).

I just drizzled some olive oil, salt, and black pepper on these to make a little salad.

Posing by the peach crates.  They had some samples Theo tried.

Nibbling on bread to hold us over on the walk back.

We enjoyed many meals out of our purchases, including: some great chicken sandwiches Brian made on the focaccia bread, tomato salad, leak and potato soup from my Julia Child's cookbook that I've always wanted to make (needed a quick youtube video on how to work with leaks), Theo's favorite strawberry shortcake, my favorite corn-on-the-cob, and even Eli got some fresh pureed peas out of it (he had the soup too).  We will definitely have to add the market into our Sunday morning routine for the next few months.