Rhino
03-13-2008, 09:43 AM
It's not easy as pie to get one through security
Holiday favorites often scrutinized and sometimes confiscated by the TSA
By JESSICA BRUDER
Newhouse News Service
PORTLAND, ORE. I already knew my baking was hazardous. I'm good at burning crusts, mangling fillings and setting off smoke detectors.
But I never thought of it as a threat. At least not in the national security sense.
By the time the Transportation Security Administration agent picked me out of the day-before-Thanksgiving crowd at Portland International Airport, my pie was already rolling down the conveyor belt and into the X-ray machine, along with my sneakers, belt and laptop.
"Are you the pie lady?" the agent demanded.
Standing there in orange polka-dot socks, jeans inching down my hips, I nodded soberly. He indicated we'd have more to talk about on the far side of the metal detector.
When my pie emerged, the questions began.
"What kind of pie is that?" He squinted at the pan.
"Apple. With some raspberries."
"Does it have lumps?"
I glanced at the crust, which was black in places and looked like a topographical rendering of the Himalayas. (To think I was trying to impress my boyfriend's parents in Illinois with this thing.)
"Yes, lots of lumps."
"Does it have", he paused, "a gel filling?"
Alarms blared in my brain. They sounded like the familiar kitchen smoke detector. What was he getting at?
"No." I shook my head. "None of that."
He told me he was keeping watch for pies with cream and custard fillings. Anything that could be construed as a "gel." He'd already turned away a pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin pie filling, he confided, "has the same consistency as certain plastic explosives."
My pie was swaddled in Saran wrap and stowed in a translucent container. It was hard to see clearly through all that plastic. ("Is that a roast?" an airport worker had asked earlier, while examining my boarding pass.)
I put on a smile, half expecting the agent to pull out a dipstick. Or a fork.
Quietly, I fretted. If my pie made the no-fly list, my boyfriend and I would arrive in Illinois empty-handed. This was my first visit to his family. We had no other offerings for the Thanksgiving table.
And what would we tell them, anyway? "The TSA ate my pie?"
About a week before Thanksgiving, Michael and I were sitting in our living room in Northeast Portland, planning for the holidays.
He was skeptical when I suggested bringing his parents a pie.
Wouldn't it be a hassle? We had two flights and one layover on our way to Champaign, Ill. What if we didn't get past security?
First I laughed. Then I Googled.
A dozen Thanksgiving pies were confiscated last year at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. They were all donated to the airport's USO lounge, which serves traveling soldiers....http://130.80.29.3/disp/story.mpl/moms/5400653.html
Holiday favorites often scrutinized and sometimes confiscated by the TSA
By JESSICA BRUDER
Newhouse News Service
PORTLAND, ORE. I already knew my baking was hazardous. I'm good at burning crusts, mangling fillings and setting off smoke detectors.
But I never thought of it as a threat. At least not in the national security sense.
By the time the Transportation Security Administration agent picked me out of the day-before-Thanksgiving crowd at Portland International Airport, my pie was already rolling down the conveyor belt and into the X-ray machine, along with my sneakers, belt and laptop.
"Are you the pie lady?" the agent demanded.
Standing there in orange polka-dot socks, jeans inching down my hips, I nodded soberly. He indicated we'd have more to talk about on the far side of the metal detector.
When my pie emerged, the questions began.
"What kind of pie is that?" He squinted at the pan.
"Apple. With some raspberries."
"Does it have lumps?"
I glanced at the crust, which was black in places and looked like a topographical rendering of the Himalayas. (To think I was trying to impress my boyfriend's parents in Illinois with this thing.)
"Yes, lots of lumps."
"Does it have", he paused, "a gel filling?"
Alarms blared in my brain. They sounded like the familiar kitchen smoke detector. What was he getting at?
"No." I shook my head. "None of that."
He told me he was keeping watch for pies with cream and custard fillings. Anything that could be construed as a "gel." He'd already turned away a pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin pie filling, he confided, "has the same consistency as certain plastic explosives."
My pie was swaddled in Saran wrap and stowed in a translucent container. It was hard to see clearly through all that plastic. ("Is that a roast?" an airport worker had asked earlier, while examining my boarding pass.)
I put on a smile, half expecting the agent to pull out a dipstick. Or a fork.
Quietly, I fretted. If my pie made the no-fly list, my boyfriend and I would arrive in Illinois empty-handed. This was my first visit to his family. We had no other offerings for the Thanksgiving table.
And what would we tell them, anyway? "The TSA ate my pie?"
About a week before Thanksgiving, Michael and I were sitting in our living room in Northeast Portland, planning for the holidays.
He was skeptical when I suggested bringing his parents a pie.
Wouldn't it be a hassle? We had two flights and one layover on our way to Champaign, Ill. What if we didn't get past security?
First I laughed. Then I Googled.
A dozen Thanksgiving pies were confiscated last year at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. They were all donated to the airport's USO lounge, which serves traveling soldiers....http://130.80.29.3/disp/story.mpl/moms/5400653.html