55. Pastry on the Edge of Town

Go searching for a bridge, and you might just find a pie.

***Just a quick housekeeping note: This issue once again may be too long to read in your email and it may end abruptly with something like “Message Clipped.” To make sure you see the whole thing, including the footnotes, you may need to click on “View Entire Message”.***

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In March of 2023, when I delivered my lecture about hot dog semantics¹ at Trampoline Hall, friend of the newsletter Patrick Pittman delivered a lecture about using Google Maps’ Street View as a time machine. By using Street View’s “See More Dates” option, you can travel back and see things as they no longer are, but also see people who are no longer there. Patrick can use it to see his late mother working in her garden. A man in Singapore uses it to visit his Grandmother every Chinese New Year.

And, long after I am gone,² you can go on Street View, search for “8 Bristol Avenue,” and choose “May 2019” to see me walking along Geary Ave on my way to work.³

Man in motion

In a similar way, I’ve always enjoyed using Street View as a teleporter. When I can’t be somewhere, I can still look around. I’ve taken several walks around my old neighbourhood in Osaka, seeing what’s changed and if I can still find my way to the 7-11 and video store.⁴

Hey Peter! I can see my old apartment from here!

And so, after watching a video about a Bailey Bridge⁵ that Old Finch Ave. uses to cross the Rouge River near the rear, non-public entrance to the Toronto Zoo, I decided to use Street View to go for a walk.

A follow-up video also mentioned the Sewells Road Bridge a little farther along. It’s the only suspension bridge in Toronto and surely one of the smallest vehicluar suspension bridges anywhere, so I Street View wandered over there as well.

“Yes, yes,” I hear you grumbling, “But what does any of this have to do with food? What is this, The Bridge Cleaner?”

At the very end of the follow-up video, the host, notsmoothsteve, mentions there is also a small roadside butter tart stand nearby. THAT was when I knew I should probably get out there and see everything for myself. Because Street View makes for a great time machine and teleporter but also a terrible mouth. With just a little more poking about on Google Maps, I came across something I didn’t know existed in Toronto: a proper Honesty Box.

Sure, I’ve bought vegetables at the end of dirt driveways on country roads, with only a coffee can at an unstaffed table to collect payments. But it wasn’t until watching the sixth season of Shetland that I learned just how much more an Honesty Box could be.⁶

And here, on the very edge of the city—quite literally, the other side of the street is Pickering—there was an honesty box. The situation went from “I should probably check that out,” to, “I must be there as soon as possible,” in seconds flat.

The first steps to get there are simple: just follow whatever directions you’re given to reach the Toronto Zoo.⁷ But rather than turn into the zoo’s parking lot, keep driving north on Meadowvale Rd. Then, after crossing Hillside Bridge, yet another (but comparitively unremarkable) single-track span, you’re surrounded by the woods of Rouge National Urban Park. It’s the city, but not the city. A few more turns take you past Julie’s Homemade Butter Tarts, and a few more after that brings you to the Scarborough-Pickering Townline and the Rouge Park Pie Stand.

What’s an ‘e’ between pastry friends?

By the time we arrived (3 pm on a late September Sunday) there were only three pies (two blueberry-peach and one blueberry) and a few jars of honey remaining.

We opted for a blueberry-peach and put our $13 (cash only, of course) into the jar beside the honey.

Just another way that honey is like freedom.

Turning back home, we stopped at Julie’s Homemade Butter Tarts. I chatted briefly with a man who I assume was not Julie, but could’ve been Beth’s father’s doppelganger (when seen from across the road anyway). He mentioned that the pie stand had been doing strong business all summer⁸ and that a lot of people were coming away empty handed.⁹ He also mentioned that his daughter, Stephanie,¹⁰ had some spicy pickles for sale. So that was the end of my cash. $13 for half dozen butter tarts (three plain, three pecan, plus an extra plain because one looked a bit wonky) for $11 plus another $10 (maybe?) for the pickles.¹¹

Julie's Homemade Butter Tarts — 8 Beare Rd, Toronto.

The pie, even with the less-common combination (at least to me) of peach and blueberry was very nice. There aren’t many homemade pies you’ll regret making a drive for; this is one that is more than worth it. The crust, in that wonderfully homemade way, was ever so slightly burnt in a few places and hit just right. Nice crumble top as well. The butter tarts were not overly sweet, which I appreciated as it’s the downfall for many of them. They had a nice balance of sweetness and richness with an sturdy but crumbly crust. The pickles had a small but enjoyable kick of heat and an undertone of garlic, but of the things available at Julie’s stand, I think I’d stick with the baking.

Cross sections of our haul.

Longtime readers will have noticed that the interval between this issue and the previous one is significantly shorter than usual.¹² That’s because the season for both stands is rapidly drawing to a close. I expect that they’ll be open this weekend, but I have no idea what happens beyond that. Judging from past posts on Facebook, Julie’s tends to close after the second weekend in October. Links to both locations include contact information, so it might not be a bad idea to call or email before; if you live near me, it’s a 45-minute drive across the city to get there. But even if they’re sold out or closed, it’s a hell of a gorgeous drive at this time of year.¹³ And if they’re not open, consider that the motivation you need to be first in line next spring.

Are there any semi-secret spots where you live that you kind of want to keep to yourself but also want the world to know about? Let me know in the comments below?¹⁴

1. Semantic/pedantic. Potato/potato.

2. Provided Google Maps outlives me, of course.

3. A huge thanks to Stu Brown for first letting me know about this.

4. No, but only because the 7-11 moved and it’s 2024: what’s a video store? I can still find where they used to be, however.

5. A type of modular, easy-to-assemble bridge that can be very quickly assembled. The Old Finch Bridge was built in three days in October 1954 to replace one washed out by Hurricane Hazel. I read one engineer’s account of building them as “big Lego.”

6. And Shetland is lousy with them!

7. If you’re coming to the Zoo from the northwest, your directions will not work for this, but I also suspect you already know about the butter tart hut and the pie stand.

8. Although I could find only a single article and a handful of videos about it, so I think most of the traffic is coming from people in the surrounding areas.

9. Suckers!

10. So maybe Julie is his wife? It doesn’t really matter I guess.

11. It was pickles. The price wasn’t relevant enough to remember.

12. My records show I once went 138 days without publishing.

13. If only to scope out the few properties that had a national park built around them and, even without a pie stand close by, you might dream of owning.

14. For better or worse, I’m no Keith Lee, so your secret is probably safe in my comments section. (That said, can we make “The Plate Cleaner Bump” a thing?)