Evening star., 1902-02-15
Mrs. Hawkins Personally
Superintends the Entire
PrOcess-OVer a Million
Pies a Year Supplies All
the Departments and
Thousands of Families.
Home Made Pies

piNS.
Eight years. We began by bak-
ing four pies on little gasoline
stove, and now we bake something
over million year
"All homemade ?"
Certainly. ! superintend the
making of every piece of pastry,
every loaf of bread that goes out of
this establishment and Mrs. Haw-
kins looked about the big room with
its white-topped tables and its white
floor and its white walls and its shin
ing tins with as near an air of pride
as a modest woman from Phlladel-
phia could be expected to wear.
ssI just KNEW How
Where did you learn to make
pies :" | asked.
Il never did learn. | just knew
how" And her answer was the
philosophy of good cooking. Good
cooks are born and have ar art in
these things that is inherited through
the generations, and none attained
to it except by birth.
| have wanted long time to write
the story of the Holmes pies. 1t in
terests every man, woman and child
in the District, for it pertains to one
of the great luxury necessities, and
its the story of a great success, be-
ginning with the four pies and ex-
panding into demand that en-
braces the best families in the Dis
trict, the best grocery stores and all
the lunch counters that are first class
and all the lunch counters in every
department of the government, the
Holmes pies being served exclusive
" BY the dietetic dispensations Of the
Library of Congress, the National
Capitol. the Treasury Department,
the Public Printing Office, the De
partment of State, War and Navy,
the City Post Office, the Bureau of
Engraving and Printing, the De
partment of the Interior, the Census
Office and the Pension Office, for the
old veterans find pies made of the
Holmes process as delectable and as
digestible as do the vigorous young
people who devote their energies to
compiling the figures of Our great
and growing country.
Six months ago. when the fruits
OF summer predominated the pie
proposition, l first visited the
Holmes Bakery, and Mr.. Lewis
Holmes, who is a testimonial to
health in pie eating, being six feet
two, two hundred and forty-hve
pounds, Of well-proportioned dimen-
sions, son Of James Holmes, with
whom he is associated in the firm,
took me through the bakery, as he
would any one who called to inves-
tigate his pies.
Fresh Fruits of the Choic-
est Kinds.
| noted then the cleanliness of
everything, the perfection of the pro-
cess, and especially the fact that the
fruit that was being put into the
pies was fresh fruit of the choicest
strawberries, large and lus-
cious, the kind they serve with cream
and sugar at the Raleigh or the
Shoreham, blackberries and buckle
berries and cherries.
They were making these fruits de-
hciously into pies, the crusts of
which were shortened to that perfec-
ton OF pastry which marks the high
est attainment of the art, and they
were the same quality, both the un-
der crust and the upper crust, and
baked SO carefully that when pie
was turned over to show the lower
crust it was just as crisp and haky as
the upper crust, no soggy places in it,
no imperfections, for in pie baking
the details make a success, and de-
tails engage Mrs. Hawkins atten-
ton from the beginning to the end
of the process, her eight cooks and
her two dozen other assistants being
inspired and directed by Mrs. Haw-
kins' personal presence.
A Tribute to Mrs. Hawkins
"It's to Mrs. Hawkins we owe the
success OF our pie business said