by John Dowd
When it comes to expertise in pie making in the Bitterroot, few can dispute the reigning champion. If practice makes perfect, then the closest pies to perfection must be those made by Joanne Mikesell Moore. She has been making pies for Glen’s Cafe for over 30 years. That is averaging eight pies a day, 56 a week, 224 pies a month and 2,688 pies per year. In her lifetime, Moore has made roughly 80,688 pies, and she says she has not missed many days.
Moore has tried her hand at nearly every kind of pie imaginable, including coconut cream, cherry, peach, strawberry, huckleberry, minced-meat, mixed berry, sour cream raisin, chocolate, banana cream, pumpkin, blackberry and many more. Currently, the staples at Glen’s Cafe include apple, rhubarb, blueberry, raspberry and blackberry.
“You gotta use what you can get,” said Moore. All her pies are hand made from scratch. That means with no canned filling, all hand made crust and the fruit has all been picked locally, or bought fresh. She said she will use, “whatever I can figure out how to make a pie with,” and has tried just about everything.
Her selections have been dictated by price and availability. Seasonal changes also affect what fruits are ripe. To keep up with demand, she has several freezers packed with frozen fruit. Every morning, Moore calls the cafe to see what pies they are short on and usually makes them in the evening. It takes her about four hours to make all her pies.
Along with the pies, she was also the cafe bookkeeper until about six years ago. Moore also did the shopping for the cafe, driving to Missoula, for many years. However, as most people would not guess, her passion is not in pie-making, or in the cafe at all. In fact, she has been running cattle since she was seven-years-old. Having grown up on a ranch, she grew up around farming and cattle, and even participated in 4-H. When she was young, she would travel all around the state during fair time, entering her cattle to win.
Moore’s first cousin, Tana Meuchel, added, “She’s done it all!” explaining that Moore has done everything a person can do on a ranch, from the cattle to the fencing, cooking, canning and all the in-between. At 69-years-old, Moore is a ranch girl at heart. She also has a blue heeler dog she talks fondly of and still loves her cattle.
When asked about why she took on the mantle of pie-maker for Glen’s, Moore said she had no choice. Moore expounded that no one taught her to make pies. Her dad’s aunt, Fritz Everson, was the original pie-maker for the restaurant, but after 20 years of making pies she passed away. Her pies were award-winning, and they even made it onto the international stage through articles in Geo Magazine and Reader’s Digest. Being such an integral part of the cafe, the position had to be filled. Though Moore had other aspirations, Moore’s mother, Dolores Mikesell, had her own plans. “Get on back there and start baking pies!” Moore recounts what her mother told her after her great aunt passed. Moore’s mother, being a woman of her own mind and direction, gave her children little choice of their own, said Moore. So, ever since, Moore has been trying to make both worlds work.
She may be slowing down, but Moore says she does not plan on stopping anytime soon. Though her family tells her to look into enjoying retirement, her answer is that “the pies won’t make themselves!”