Pie masters make a Zen-like moment

Quite possibly some Eunice Rotarians enjoyed a Zen-like moment as they experienced the pies of Louisiana Pie Peddlers.
Sweet, flaky dough, tasty fillings: boudin, peach, sweet potato and corn maque choux
One might think: Pie R Good.
The Louisiana Pie Peddlers are Harold Schexsnayder and Judy Harmon, of Opelousas.
Pat Dossman, a Rotarian, said, “The day Harold, Judy and I met it was like the sky opened up and the angels started singing.”
She wasn’t alone. The meeting day was when Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser visited the St. Landry Parish Visitors Center near Washington on May 4.
Nungesser ended up chasing down Schexsnayder and Harmon to praise their pies and inquire about having them at an office party. That invite didn’t work out, but the pies are developing a following.
Schexsnayder said the tourist center event was the first public presentation of the pies.
“We were trying for the first time to take our pies to a public event and get some feedback,” he said.
Dossman’s reaction made his day, he said.
Schexsnayder spent most of his life as an educator including a stint as dean at T.H. Harris Vocational Technical School. Harmon worked in the food business.
But it is Schexsnayder who said he took up a pastry-making hobby.
“Some years ago, maybe six or eight, I started to try to make pie pastry,” he said.
“I would go home from T.H. Harris every day and get into the kitchen and start reading and try to do these things. For two years I would bake dough and throw it in the backyard. It didn’t work. It was not good. I knew I didn’t have it,” he said.
One day changed and the recipe started working, he said.
“So, I started to work that dough. Then it became a real strong interest and then it became a passion and then it became an obession and if I don’t make pies and pie pastry every day now my day just doesn’t end,” he said.
“I don’t know how that sounds, but how wonderful to find something that you can be passionate about,” he said.
Schexsnayder said the late Chef Paul Prudhomme put his stamp of approval on the pies during a meeting in New Orleans.
“They started eating my pies and these people were going nuts over them and I’m thinking, “but your are the elite and you like what I’m doing.’ That was my first real encouragement, I guess,” he said.
The pies are made by Schexsnayder and Harmon by hand now. They have a mobile kitchen that they plan to use to produce their pies at festivals this year, including the Experience Louisiana Festival in Eunice in October.
The next phase for Louisiana Pie Peddlers is to semi-automate the production process and the third phase is find a facility that can make the pies, he said.
“More than a mass marketed thing, we want it to be a loving, fresh Louisiana thing,” he said.