Although much of his life is public, something not everyone knows about Sioux Falls City Council member Curt Soehl is that he has a sweet tooth. And pie is his favorite dessert. Recently, the retired fire captain and insurance agent volunteered to serve as a judge for the American Pie Council National Pie Championships.
In this Take A Moment segment, Soehl talks about his lifelong love of pie and his on-going desire to keep life interesting.
“My mom is one of the best pie crust makers, in my opinion, in all of the United States. She learned that from her mother, and then my grandma would make pies for us, and my mom would make pies.
It is something that did not happen on a daily basis but when you got a pie, you knew you would get one of the best crusts out there.
It is flaky, I won’t say it’s very moist, it is a little dyer than most people like, but it is really light and really flaky, it holds together well when you cut it, and yet it is not like a piece of cardboard.
It’s been years since I’ve made a pie, but my years at the fire station, I would take my mother’s pie crust recipe and I would make pies for the guys at the station. I would not do it on a regular basis, but when the opportunity arose, I knew how to roll out a good pie dough.
What would it take to become a judge at the National Pie Championships? I applied and was chosen and got the opportunity to go down there and test out some great pies.
And then they would pass the piece of pie around and the judges would then slice off a little bit for themselves and you could taste it and you would judge it on the taste and consistency of the filling and the taste and consistency of the crust and then the overall appearances of each piece.
We tasted 19 pies. For me that was two bites out of each piece. By the time you are done, you are quite full.
I think it started sometime in my 50s and my kids were out of the house and starting families of their own and they were very stable. And you just think, “am I going to do the same thing that I did this year, next year and next year and next year and next year?”
And that is when I raised my hand and ran for the City Council, and I have been restoring an old pickup. Things that were challenging, that I had not done before and I want to try to do.
See, what else is there out there that a guy like me can do?
Have not got that planned yet. After the National Pie Championships everything has seems to be a little pale, a little vanilla in challenges.
I want to be challenged and I want to be able to give back some of the benefits and blessings that I have. I don’t know what that next challenge will be.”
