Mama Jo Pies
 Medina, Ohio           Date of Visit  04/17/13            http://www.mamajopies.com/

Been working on trying out Mama Jo’s sweet treats for a short while but our schedules conspired against us for a bit. We were headed to the Medina Italian joint SantoSuossos’ we had learned about the same day we heard about Mama Jo. A strip mall bakeshop with a few cookies and a pile of pie. If you're old enough to remember the show Friends; Joey’s favorite food was sandwiches, mine would be pies. Let’s get it on.
 

Howdy Pardner, I Hope This Isn't The Likeness Of Mama Jo
 

Probably indicative of Medina, the place is much nicer inside than I would expect. There are all sorts of half clever things on the wall and for sale. I personally enjoyed seeing the Swedish Chef of Muppet fame residing in a basket on the wall along with the huge cowboy statue holding a pie.

The employee behind the counter at first seemed a little rude but it is much more likely after a full examination of the evidence, a little ditzy. She knew her product, she just didn’t seem to know she was at work. We ordered three small pies (6”) and a couple pieces of baklava.

What you should probably know about Mama Jo is the fillings are above average, which is very nice. But that is the easy part. The real challenge to pies is the crust. There is a mixture of alchemy, art and magic that makes a transcendent pie crust. They obviously try hard at Jo’s but don’t quite make the standout list. Their other outpost is in Amherst, where we encountered Kiedrowski’s Bakery who has the magic of Merlin, competition doesn’t get much tougher.
 

As far as around here…I imagine Mama Jo makes a superior product. We tried the Cherry, Carmel Apple Walnut and Strawberry Cream Cheese pies. The cherries were perfectly tart balancing the sweetness of the sugar and butter in the thickened juicy off-cast. The apple pie suffered a bit from about a minute and a half of undercooking, leaving the apples with a bit too much texture and rawness. The walnuts stood out in the aroma upon opening the box but didn’t really stand out on the palate but the thin strips of caramel managed to hold their own against the crumble topping apples. So close.

The strawberries resided in a thick reduction of juice and sugar which balanced the rich fattiness of the cream cheese filling. The only downside was the mealiness of all three crusts resulting in a thick pasty sheath which distracted from the innards. The baklava was also good but didn’t work hard enough to breach the top tier. You could do much worse than Mama Jo, if you are willing to follow your bliss you could also do better.
 

Passable Baklava