''I just said … 'Sorry, the pies are sold out; only cold pies','' Ms Huang told 3AW. '''If you want, I could put it in the microwave'.''
Mr Shorten's response, she claims, was unsavoury and involved the F-word. He then marched out, she says - only to return to her shop and tell her she had lost his business.
The tension appears to have mushroomed from a misunderstanding about the word ''soft''. Ms Huang says she told Mr Shorten that if the pie was heated in the microwave, it would be soft. She then said: ''I like Julia Gillard''.
Mr Shorten, however, heard that the pie would be ''soft like Julia Gillard,'' his boss and the woman he helped propel into the top job two years ago.
He denies he swore at Ms Huang but has apologised for upsetting her. ''What I now accept, and that's why I have unreservedly apologised to Mrs Huang, (is) she is saying she likes Julia Gillard,'' he told reporters. ''She wasn't saying the Prime Minister was soft like a pie.''
''I certainly needed to get a pie …'' he added. ''I'm sure that I was under the pump to get Rupert [his boy] a pie before football.''
Premier Ted Baillieu couldn't resist a nibble. ''If he wants to persuade Australians he's the man for the future, then maybe he ought to start in a pie shop.''
