When I was a college freshman at the University of South Carolina, I met one of my best friends. We met in class and decided to attend a talk at the historic McCutchen House. The talk was about truffles: the kind that occur in nature, not the kind you make from chocolate.

We learned that truffle soup is awesome, and we learned that you can eat lunch at the McCutchen house. There is even a Thanksgiving buffet. So we had an amazing delicious thanksgiving lunch there, way back in 2009. By the way, according to their website, this year’s Thanksgiving buffet is available November 21 and 22. You can see the menu at this link: http://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/hrsm/for_the_community/mccutchen_house_dining/bistro_lunch_dining/index.php

I deeply regret looking at the current menu, because I’ll be crying for the next three hours knowing I can’t be there (insert crying emoji here). If you look at the menu, you’ll notice tomato pie is included. You might also notice that the website provides a recipe for tomato pie. That’s because it’s awesome and everyone wishes they could make awesome tomato pie. Find the tomato pie recipe here: http://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/hrsm/for_the_community/mccutchen_house_dining/bistro_lunch_dining/recipes_pdfs/2015_tomato_pie_recipe.pdf

They have updated the recipe slightly since I first found it and tried it. The small onion has become a red onion and the time to bake has gone from 15 minutes to 25 minutes (which, having tried the recipe, makes more sense). Well, I tried making the McCutchen House Tomato Pie, but it just wasn’t as magical as I remember. I was having trouble getting the measurements right, and the mini pie shells were extremely hard to find. They also weren’t very easy to work with. I couldn’t get all the filling in, and the final product was sub-par. So I was still dreaming of that perfect tomato pie.

Then, one Thanksgiving weekend, I found another magical tomato pie. I was in Atlanta, GA, spending time with my family and eating tons of great food. We decided to try out Mary Mac’s Tea Room. They opened in 1945 and serve some killer southern cuisine. They also have tomato pie. Magical tomato pie. This tomato pie was made in a casserole dish rather than mini pie shells. It came topped with Ritz cracker crumbs and I was totally hooked. I found out that my mother had gotten the recipe for Mary Mac’s Tomato Pie from a newspaper article a few years ago. You can find that same recipe here: http://www.atlantamagazine.com/recipes/tomato-pie/

Mary Mac’s owner also created a cookbook available for purchase on their website, http://www.marymacs.com/

Considering how great the tomato pie is, I may have to invest in one. I found this particular recipe easier and ditched the pie shells. I will say that spreading the cheese topping over the layers of tomato and onion can be challenging. I also used more Ritz cracker topping than the recipe called for. It turned out awesome and reminded me of that first tomato pie back at USC. I will definitely be making this for the next company potluck.

There are some foods that evoke magical memories for me, and this is one of them. If you like cooking, tomato pie, or magical memories, you should try this recipe or trick someone into making it for you. Happy eating!