Someone once said that there is nothing better in life than taking a pie out of the oven.

Some pie lovers might say that there’s nothing better in life than ordering a custom-baked Dr. Oliver Lugibihl hickory nut and black walnut pie.

And, this month you can have your Lugibihl pie and eat it too, pre-ordered from the Service Group of Mennonite Home Communities of Ohio.

The service group is accepting pie orders available for Christmas now through Friday, Dec. 19.

Pies are available at $25 each with all proceeds supporting the projects of the service group. To place an order call MHCO at 419-358-1015, extension 211, Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Background on the Oliver Lugibihl pie
A couple years ago the Icon watched Dr. Lugibihl during one of his pie-baking sessions. Here’s part of that interview:

To the question, “Why did you start baking hickory nut pies?” pie-baker Lugibihl replied, “I probably didn’t have any pecans.”

Then came a grin.

The grin occurred between his breaking a jumbo Moser egg and measuring out some Watkins vanilla, which he insists he likes better than other vanilla, “because of its stronger flavor.”

Known as the hickory nut pie man, Icon viewers have a rare, seasonal opportunity to purchase one his masterpiece pies this month.

 “When I retired I wanted to do some of the things I remembered as a kid,” said Lugibihl, who served the Bluffton-Pandora communities in medical practice as a general practitioner.

About five years ago he started to do one of those “things.”

He started baking hickory nut pies. He made 38  in his first year for the Bluffton Fall Festival.  Since then he’s baked dozens of the pies as fundraisers for the Service Group of the Mennonite Home Communities of Ohio and also Grace Mennonite Church, Pandora.

Pies are baked two at a time, “because they don’t bake quite right if you put more than two in the oven at the same time,” he said. And, concerning the two in the oven, bake them for 50 minutes at 325 degrees.

“If the pie jiggles after 50 minutes, leave it in a little longer,” he said. Each pie, in a 10-inch crust, contains one and one-half cups of nuts.

The hickory nut harvest occurs at the end of August and goes into September and October.

The nuts used in this year’s pies are from the previous fall.

Back to the pies, in Lugibihl’s garage hang bags of hickory nuts and more nuts, from last year, fill his freezer.

He jokingly said, the nuts here are from “cradle to grave.” Adding, “If you know hickory nuts, you know these pies are worth it.”