An apple pie with raisins and crushed walnuts and seasoned with molasses, inspired by The Ocean at The End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

New York is a dirty, frustrating, loud place to live. However, every once in a blue moon amazing things happen in this crazy town. For example, you could be riding the E train downtown (a train you very rarely take and never in that direction) only one stop, and you may happen to get on the same train, into the same car, with your favorite author of all time. Talk about cosmic. And that is how I met Neil Gaiman.

How do you tell someone that you find their work so inspiring that it makes you want to bake pie? Since our whole conversation is one big, happy blur I can’t rightly remember how I brought them up, but the subjects of my intense admiration and literary pies did arise. Mr. Gaiman recommended that I take a look at The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which already has a pie in it. What luck! What fortuitous happenstance! I immediately went out and bought a copy (which just came out in paperback in June).