It’s the kindness of strangers. The shine in a person’s eyes. The imagining of world-changing ideas. It’s in the green of the leaves on a peace lily left behind by a lost soul. The pound in your chest when thunder sounds close. The wonder you feel when you look into the eyes of something wild.

Want to know what happens when you tell me no? A pie company happens, that’s what. Or at least, that’s how Dini’s Divine Homemade Pies came to be a small business.

When I started the business of pie in the fall of 2021, I did it for love.

At the time, I loved a man and making him pie was a complete joy. It started on his birthday with a Key lime pie, his favorite. It was the best he’d ever had, he said. “There’s a market for this,” he said.