Crawfish Pie at Rick’s White Light Diner

PIE-A-DAY #45

Delilah Snell is the owner of The Road Less Traveled, an eco-store in Santa Ana, CA. She has a blog (Project Small) and teaches preserving classes.

During the past week, I have been braving the heat and humidity for my second time on Route 127 in Kentucky and Tennessee. What’s so important about 127 and why on earth would one hang out in 100 degree heat and equal humidity?

For the first weekend of August, this small highway, which starts in Gadsden, Alabama hosts the largest yard sale in the country– and if you are a fan of junk, vintage, or sales of any kind you have over 600 miles of it to go absolutely nuts…and for me that is what i have been doing for the past few days in addition to some great food.

It all started with a quick search on Yelp…

We started our travels in Kentucky’s capital, Frankfort and wanted to at least give a small effort to find some honest cooking beyond the littered fast food chains, so I crossed my fingers when I typed in “frankfort, KY” on the iPhone. One option looked promising if not a little strange –Rick’s White Light Diner, so the next day we decided to head over for some breakfast.

Talk about timing. As we pulled up to the small, white-tiled diner we were met with a sign saying “as seen on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives“- and that the episode was airing this week-talk about just meeting the crowds!

As we sat in the 20 person diner, covered with stickers, Madonna’s Nude Photo book, Scarface posters and various other mixed up-but-oh-so right knick knacks, we met Rick who suggested we get the

Crawfish Pie, a specialty and on his suggestion, a

Blue Moon with orange, which he called the Redneck Mimosa (you must try it).

While trying this odd but-oh-so-right concoction of crawfish, chipotles, garlic, green onions, butter, cumin, heavy cream all stewing in a thick rue, we laughed and listened to Rick and his stories. The crust of the pie is super buttery and savory, but surprisingly thin, it doesn’t take away from the shredded up bits of crawfish that were just under the surface. The chipotles we also very slight, not used for heat as much as they were to give a smokiness to the pie-which I think came from Rick’s love of the BBQ which he proudly talked about when you entered the place . I have to say the beer really complimented the creaminess of the pie and although it wasn’t too heavy for what it had in it (i think it was Rick’s ultra-light crust), the Redneck Mimosa made it a perfect breakfast meal without leaving me in a food coma.

Crawfish Pie aside, you have to visit Rick’s White Light Diner for Rick alone. This man was turning out orders on the tiniest of grills with orders held by old clothes pins, all while making fun of us Californians and everyone else in the joint-causing everyone to roll with laughter every few minutes-it will definitely be a return visit next year.

You can see Rick make his Crawfish Pie with Guy Fieri on the latest episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.