Metro Weekly

Food & Friends’ Slice of Life offers delicious pies that do good

Flavors include pumpkin, apple crumble, and sea salt chocolate chess for Food & Friends' annual fundraising event

Food & Friends, slice of life
Food & Friends

As the cold weather finally descends on the DMV, many of us begin to think about the holidays. More than likely, you’re focused on the food part of the holidays — especially the sweet treats. For the past 15 years, Food & Friends has been helping all of us enjoy a sweeter festive season through its annual Thanksgiving pie fundraiser, “Slice of Life.”

With five delicious varieties to choose from, the sale of each pie provides a day’s worth of nutritious meals for one of the organization’s 3,600 clients. Last year, Food & Friends made and delivered a whopping 1.2 million meals — never missing a day, even as the COVID pandemic worsened. Relying on 5,463 volunteers, the organization has been an integral part of our community’s social safety net since 1989.

This year, Food and Friends expects to sell between 7,000 and 9,000, each handmade by Whisked, a bakery founded in D.C. and celebrating its 10 year anniversary this year. Jenna Huntsberger started Whisked by selling her homemade treats at D.C.’s farmers’ markets, and her company has since grown to serve more than 200 shops and restaurants from D.C. to Philadelphia.

“I think the work that they’re doing in the community is just absolutely fantastic,” Huntsberger says of her partnership with Food and Friends. “Being a food producer myself, it’s really cool to work with nonprofits that are working on food insecurity in the community. It’s neat to see this nonprofit in D.C. that is giving back to the community through food.”

Food & Friends
Food & Friends

Whisked uses “the real and simple ingredients that you would use if you were baking at home,” Hunstberger says. The pie sale includes three of Whisked’s seasonal favorites — pumpkin, apple crumble, and a sea salt chocolate chess pie (Huntsberger’s personal favorite) — as well as a special nutty pecan pie and a sweet potato pie, both made exclusively for Food & Friends.

“All of our products are handmade,” notes Huntsberger. “We’re making our pie crusts from scratch. We’re making our fillings from scratch. There is literally a person who is scooping the filling into each one. It’s a labor of love that goes into every single one of these pies.”

Food & Friends’ Slice of Life pies are $28-$45 and are available to order at the organization’s website through November 17. Visit www.sliceoflifedc.org.

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