Judging

Any true competition has some mechanism to determine which competitor prevails…who can outwit, outplay, outlast…who can call themselves the champion. My Quest is simple – I will sample and rate every pie that Bakers Square has to offer. When all is said and done, there can be only one…the champion…the King of the Pie.

So how do you whittle down a field of over thirty-five pies and have only one remain?

Maybe we could do it in American Idol or America’s Got Talent style. Although I don’t think Simon, Randy, Sharon or David would be viable options.

How about taking a page from Survivor? No, that wouldn’t work. I’m pretty sure the pies won’t be available for tribal council.

What about doing something on par with the Olympics? Well, the theme music would be cool, but you always have to keep an eye on the German judge.

Maybe I need to get off the Networks and flip down the channels a little farther. Yes. The Food Network. That’s where I’ll find my answer.

Maybe something along the lines of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Or even better…Iron Chef America. I can see it now…Pie Stadium. The mystery pie would be unveiled at the beginning, Alton Brown can provide commentary. It’ll be huge!

Ok. So I might be getting a little carried away. But I think I’m on to something here. There won’t be a Pie Stadium and Alton Brown is probably too busy to commentate, but judging food based on categories like taste and appearance might actually work.

Along with taste and appearance, I think we should add texture as well. After all, texture is an important part of any dish, so I think we will add that too.

Now, in order to be able to separate the winners from the losers, I think each component of the pie should be judged individually – then combined to come up with an overall score. When we break it down to basics and look at the definition of pie, you have two key parts:

- The crust/topping; and
- The filling.

Each of these will be judged on taste, appearance and texture. There should probably be an Overall Pie Experience included too, so we can round out the judging.

Points – you can’t really judge anything if there are no point values. Since it looks like there will be over thirty-five pies in competition, we need to make sure the point range is large enough to accommodate all the pies – as well as be able to create separation. I’m thinking 10 points per component.

So here it is:

Crust/Topping
Appearance – 10 total points possible
Taste – 10 total points possible
Texture – 10 total points possible

Filling
Appearance – 10 total points possible
Taste – 10 total points possible
Texture – 10 total points possible

Overall Pie Experience – 10 additional points possible

Total possible points: 70

You know, I think this just might be crazy enough to work.