My brother-in-law, who's been living in Kentucky for a few years and has taken a liking to it's cuisine, had a seemingly-simple dessert request for Thanksgiving—derby pie.  I'd never before made or even eaten derby pie, so off I went into the World Wide Web in search of a recipe, but there were no derby pie recipes to be found on any of my favorite recipe sites.  Why? . . . you might be wondering.  In my view, it's a case of intellectual property rights run amok.  Nearly half a century ago a family in Kentucky decided to name a chocolate/walnut/bourbon pie "derby pie," then they registered the name as a trademark and aggressively sued anyone else who attempted to use the name—or at least that's the story as told on Wikipedia.  In the 1980s, for example, the family successfully sued Bon Appetit for publishing a recipe for "derby pie."  I find curious the family's characterization on it's Web site (which I'm not linking to because I don't feel like sending traffic their way) of why it has registered a trademark for "derby pie."  The Web site reads: "By 1968 DERBY-PIE® had become so successful that the name was registered with the U.S. Patent Office and the Commonwealth of Kentucky (that's the reason for the ®!). "  This sentence implies that when things get popular they necessarily get trademarked.  Of course that's not the case.  A thing gets trademarked when someone wants to own that thing . . . and this family wanted to own the name and recipe for its pie . . . and has asserted its ownership over the years through law suits.

Soooooooooo, just to be clear, the above pictured pie is NOT derby pie.  And I'm not the only one in the food blogosphere taking care to stay out of the way of this family and its lawyers.  There's a great DC-based blog named Not Derby Pie that I read regularly.  No, this isn't derby pie, it's chocolate pecan chess pie made from a recipe I found on Epicurious.  While surfing the Web looking for a derby pie recipe I quickly learned that there are plenty of recipes on the Web for derby-pie-like chocolate/nut/bourbon pies under the code names including "chocolate chess pie" and "thoroughbred pie."

I used extra-large eggs, instead of the large eggs called for in the recipe, because that what we had on hand.  I think my use of extra-large eggs is what caused the top of the pie to puff up a bit and look brownie-like.  But immediately below the surface the pie was dense chocolate and pecan and bourbon goodness.  My brother-in-law loved it, as did my other family members present.  So I recommend this recipe to any of you looking for something that's not derby pie, but close.