For decades, car-weary travelers to Minnesota's North Shore looked to two gastronomical oases to sustain them on their way, both of similar vintage and reputation: Tobie's in Hinckley, with its oversized caramel rolls, and Betty's Pies, where ambrosial delights were served up in a worn-around-the-edges shack outside of Two Harbors.
Betty Lessard took over her family's fish-selling business in an 8-by-8-foot building in 1956. Bored with just selling smoked fish, she quickly expanded to doughnuts and added a grill.
But it was her magic ways with pie that soon made it her signature, and by the time she sold the business in 1984, Betty's Pies had become as certifiable a North Shore landmark as Gooseberry Falls or Split Rock Lighthouse.
Lessard, an admitted perfectionist who rose at 3 a.m. to bake 100 pies each Sunday and 50 to 60 each weekday, along with her rye bread and cookies, and still made time to greet thousands of customers in the cozy confines of her business over the years, died Thursday night. She was 90.
It was her personal touch that made her pies special, and the taste that made her cafe an institution.
The real-deal ingredients were key, said Lessard's sister Karen Storms. "It was always butter and whipped cream. There was no faking or artificial anything."
Many wouldn't dream of using such fatty, high-calorie ingredients today, Storms said, "but you still get the best pie crusts from lard." And that's what Lessard used to achieve a perfect flaky crust.
Lessard learned her craft from a household maid who loved to bake. It wasn't long until she considered the sweet dish at the end of dinner as the most important.