Triple Coconut Holy Grail

The great Seattle chef Tom Douglas put on a bash last night featuring a roasted pig (cooked on the sidewalk, perfuming the whole neighborhood), chicken-fried steak sandwiches on biscuits, buttermilk macaroni-n-cheese, fine-stranded slaw, pickled okra and tomatoes, fried dill pickles, and – ta-da! – the ultimate coconut cream pie. It’s called triple coconut pie because even the crust is laced with it. Creamy beyond words, jolted with vanilla, piled with whipped cream and garnished with not only coconut chips but also shreds of white chocolate (the only time I’ve ever loved white chocolate), it is a shoe-in for the Pie Hall of Fame. (Please pardon the crappy photo. It was dark in the Palace Ballroom and flash would have totally washed out this pale piece of perfection.)