The Delaware chef winner of the Food Network’s 2022 “Holiday Baking Championship” will discuss baking and more with the author of a new pie cookbook during an open-to-the-public Monday, Aug. 14, event in Lewes.
Dru Tevis, corporate pastry chef for SoDel Concepts, and Stacey Mei Yan Fong, author of the new cookbook, “50 Pies 50 States: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the United States Through Pie,” will mingle with attendees at Fish On restaurant in Lewes and then discuss Fong’s book.
Tickets for the event from 3 to 5 p.m., hosted by Rehoboth Beach’s Browseabout Books, are $65 (plus an online surcharge.) Get tickets here: bit.ly/50_pies_50_states.
Attendees at the restaurant located at 17300 N. Village Main Blvd. will receive a copy of Fong’s book, a ticket for a glass of champagne, samples of Delaware pie made by Tevis, and nibbles from a “harvest board” spread. A cash bar also will be available.
In May 2022, Tevis left his husband Chase, and their dogs, Jazz and Bruce, at their Lewes home and traveled alone to a Food Network studio in Knoxville, Tennessee, studio for three weeks to compete in the show he first applied for in 2015.
He earned a spot on “Holiday Baking Championship” in 2022 after someone from the Food Network saw his pastries on Instagram and then sampled a Christmas cream pie that he had made as part of the audition.
The nine-episode culinary competition series began airing in 2022 on Nov. 7 and concluded on Dec. 22 with Tevis being declared the winner.
Fong’s cookbook has been called a “deliciously unique love letter in pie crust to every state.” The resident of Brooklyn, New York, has said while growing up in Singapore and Hong Kong and watching movies set in the United States she often dreamed about visiting American diners.
Fong attended college in Savannah, Georgia, and later spent a decade as a fashion designer. She has since turned a passion for home baking into a career.
Fong has ties to Delaware. She wrote a post on her Instagram account that her editor Michael Szczerban is from Delaware and she is bringing her friend Becca Snyder, an artist who lived in Delaware, to the Lewes book signing.
“What a splendid way to spend an afternoon by the beach!” Fong said.
Contact Patricia Talorico at ptalorico@delawareonline.com and follow her on Twitter @pattytalorico Sign-up for herDelaware Eats newsletter.
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