By now everyone surely knows that President Obama’s favorite dessert is pecan pie. He’s ordered it in restaurants big and small all over the country. Pecan Pies have been shipped into the Oval Office from elegant Georgetown bakeries. And any Capital chef worth the calories who didn’t have a recipe has surely worked to perfect this Southern dessert – and pronto.

I’m proud to say I was ahead of the curve. Pecan Pie also is one of my all-time favorite desserts, and I’m exceeding picky about every detail of how it’s made. My quest for Pecan Pie perfection started nearly a quarter century ago. (That’s only 25 years but it makes the process sound so much more official, doncha think?)

I started with my father’s mother’s recipe, the pecan pie I cut my teeth on. But as I entered my 20ies, suddenly I found Granny Zeta’s pie a bit too sweet. I remember the exact moment I realized this – ‘twas at the front porch restaurant of the Esmeralda Inn, located in Bat Cave, N.C. Their pecan pie was, in that moment, beyond belief to me. I spent the rest of the visit there nagging the Inn’s owner to share his secret. (He would only agree to a 20 Questions sort of tet-a-tet and I gleaned merely a couple of hints that set me off in my current direction.)

Anyway, to make a 10-year-story short, I finally arrived at a Pecan Pie that’s what I consider the perfect balance between sweet and not; it has a terrific custard-ish texture; and it’s a pie with the butter taste of pecans in every bite.

I absolutely hate it when people won’t share their recipes, (shame on you Mr. Esmeralda!), and if I could somehow get my Pecan Pie to Barack and Michelle in time for their Thanksgiving feast, I surely would. In the meantime, maybe if we all email this recipe to our friends and post it to our Facebook profiles, somehow it will wind its way to the White House. So help me out here people – it’s worth a try!