Auckland Pie Maker Taking Steak & Cheese To Vermont Ski Slopes

A North Shore caterer who has cooked for Justin Bieber and Barack Obama is heading to Vermont to teach an infamous apres ski kitchen how to make a classic Kiwi pie - with a few American twists. Anita Sherry talks turkey (pies) to Kim Knight. The cross-section oozes Sherry knows her pies. Once, she baked her husband a different flavour every day for an entire month.“Pie July,” she explains. “Anything can go into a pie!”Soon, she’ll put that theory to the test. Sherry, a caterer and cafe owner on Auckland’s North Shore, is heading to Stowe, Vermont, to teach chefs at an infamous ski restaurant and bar how to make the Kiwi classic – with a few American twists.Her invitation to cook at The Matterhorn came via a mutual friend of the owner, who fell in love with New Zealand pies on a winter holiday to Queenstown.His Vermont restaurant and bar was founded in the 1950s. Once voted America’s top apres-ski venue, it most recently made the news after a local sheriff dispatched a bear that was repeatedly raiding the walk-in cooler, helping itself to jugs of sauce and frozen chicken patties.“Oh my gosh!” says Sherry when Viva alerts her to the headline. “That’s wild! The poor bear ... ”Anita Sherry with a selection of own-fresh pies. Photo / Dean PurcellOn a very cold late Tuesday afternoon, the only wildlife at Sherry’s Kitchen is Kamo, a friendly “Frenchton” - half French bulldog, half Boston terrier. The pie warmer has clocked off, but the room is wrapped in the aroma of warm pastry. How good are Sherry’s pies? Her business routinely caters for passengers on private jets. When Elton John toured in 2020, pies were requested on every flight. (When the musician fell ill and cancelled his post-Auckland Anniversary Weekend flood shows, “we sent him off with a flask of chicken soup instead”). Today, she’s pulled three pies from the oven for Viva to sample - braised brisket, jalapeno and cheese, an Italian-style mince and cheese and a herb-forward chicken, leek and mushroom.In America, she plans to make the most of the eastern state’s produce. Think local beef with sharp Vermont cheddar, turkey instead of chicken, and a vegetarian maple-glazed roast pumpkin with spinach and feta.“It’s maple season at the same time as we’re there, and they’ve got beautiful sage, so that’s going to appear in the turkey pie, fresh thyme ... and I guess there’ll be accompaniments, mashes and peas and a bit of relish ... ”A dollop of Wattie’s? “I think it will be Heinz!”Anita Sherry is hoping her pies are as popular in Vermont as they are in Northcote. Photo / Dean PurcellSherry never set out to become a pie maker. The 45-year-old grew up in Devonport and studied graphic design before a shift to the United Kingdom, where she nannied extensively.She’d always been interested in cooking. The second eldest of four, raised by their father, she says that when her parents separated, she took ownership of the kitchen. In the UK, she found herself becoming more and more involved in food preparation for the families she worked for. Back home, she wound up doing contract catering for corporate jets, and developing meals for the clients of high-intensity fitness franchise, F45.The home kitchen was no longer cutting it. Eight years ago, she set up on Northcote’s Lake Rd, expanding into a daytime cafe with deli salads and ready meals, while continuing to cater for the flights that brought the likes of Barack Obama to New Zealand. She’s a very reluctant name-dropper but will confirm that Robbie Williams requested vegan food and Mariah Carey had a preference for “sweet and maple-baked”. She organised, on request, McDonald’s for a Justin Bieber flight and recalls the concern when no food order had been received from Snoop Dogg – “he’d actually gone and ordered KFC ... ”The business was “crazy” busy when New Zealand co-hosted the Fifa Women’s World Cup and, she says, there was a very wild time when Russian oligarchs were making routine visits.What does an oligarch order for lunch? “Crab phalanges and all sorts. But it’s more the volume. So much food! But you’ve got to have choices, right?”Ask Sherry why she pursued a career in food, and she’ll say, “I love to eat. And I love to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it.”A pie suits her self-confessed “very short attention span”.“It’s that classic Kiwi comfort food, isn’t it? Easy to grab on the go.”Her favourite is chicken, leek and mushroom, but she’s also partial to a potato top (“as long as it has a good fluffy mountain of potatoes”). In the cafe kitchen, the team hand-rolls, cuts and fills pre-made butter pastry to the absolute brim.Anita Sherry operates Sherry's Kitchen - a cafe and catering business - on Auckland's North Shore. Photo / Dean Purcell“A good pie has to have a flaky top and a crispy bottom, but I think the hero is the filling. You’ve got to start at the very beginning. You’ve got to have the onions and the leeks and the celery to get that depth coming through. You need good quality meat, good stocks and fresh, delicious herbs. And you’ve got to get the consistency right. It’s got to be moist.”Tips for home pie makers? “You don’t want the pastry to start cooking before you’re ready for it to go in the oven, so chill your filling. And you need to have a little hole in the top pastry, so the steam comes out, so your pie doesn’t explode, and an egg wash gives it a golden shine. Otherwise, I think you can’t go wrong!”On reflection, “always blow on the pie, right?”She describes her baked behemoths as “hearty – no flat tops” and thinks they are ideally suited to an apres-ski menu.“You’re coming off a cold mountain. They’re hot, they’re comforting, they’re easy, they’re filling, they’re bloody delicious – and they go well with a red wine!”It's all about the filling, says pie maker Anita Sherry. Photo / Dean PurcellHow will the savoury, single-serve New Zealand pie go down with Americans more used to family-sized dessert pies?“I’m sure there will be a lot of tweaking in the kitchen and adapting to their tastes – do they have cheese and pastry together? I don’t know. But I’m hoping they fall in love.”Sherry attributes the superiority of the New Zealand pie to its popularity.“It’s kind of our national dish. We all love pies so much, we’re always trying to make a better one. At the weddings we cater, you bring out a petite, mini pie and it’s an absolute crowd-pleaser.”The real secret to the great Kiwi pie? “Everyone gives you love back.”More food & drinkPeople to know, places to go.Kim Knight joined the New Zealand Herald in 2016 and is senior journalist on its lifestyle desk.