The World Needs More Pie

LUCY BURDETTE: Today I'm thrilled to introduce you all to Beth Howard, pie baker and author of the memoir, Making Piece, and the blog, THE WORLD NEEDS MORE PIE. I read the book and was fascinated with her story and contacted her to see if she'd visit JRW. I'm not going to give a long introduction because Beth tells it better than I could! Off we go--Beth, please tell us about how you came to the idea that the world needs more pie?

BETH HOWARD:  I coined this little phrase, “the world needs more pie,” back in 2001 when I quit a lucrative but stressful dot com job in San Francisco and to restore the balance in my life took a “pie-baking sabbatical” for a year. I moved to Malibu, California, where I worked as the resident pie baker at a gourmet take-out café. I joked then about how pie could heal all things, like job burn-out and how pie helped me land a husband.

 But when my husband, Marcus, died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 43, I was forced to put this little “joke” to the test. I didn’t start baking pies immediately after he died, but I did write a lot on my blog, “The World Needs More Pie,” which I started in 2007. So pie maintained a presence in my early and acute stages of grief. Oddly, though, it was because I faced my fear of driving the RV Marcus left behind that led to my new pie journey, ultimately leading me back to my Iowa roots and to the American Gothic House where I’ve lived for the past two years, and where I wrote my memoir, “Making Piece.” Five months after Marcus died I drove the RV—my first time ever driving it—from Portland, Oregon to Los Angeles with the goal of just bringing back a load of my stuff that was in storage there. As soon as I arrived I ran into a TV producer friend there who knew about my blog. She had worked on MTV’s “Road Rules” and suggested we take the RV on a road trip and make a pie documentary. So we did, for two weeks. 

It was this effort of interviewing other pie bakers, teaching pie classes to different age groups, and exploring the role pie plays in making the world a better place that was the catalyst for my new direction, and in great part for jump starting my healing process. That project gave me purpose when I needed it most. The TV show never got finished—I’m still trying to sell it—but regardless, it helped me take the focus off my grief and put it on something positive, which is pie. Pie makes people happy and making others happy through pie helped in turn make me happier. Pie helped me get through the darkest time in my life.

LUCY: You've had some amazing experiences since publishing the memoir--and now you've landed in the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa where you're baking pie after pie after pie. Maybe
you could pick one or two of your favorite experiences and then tell us what's next for you?

BETH: I’m not sure if I can say any of those experiences is a “favorite.” It’s been hard work. I loved the process of writing my book. I wrote it the first winter I lived in the American Gothic House. I set up my laptop on my kitchen table (which is an ideal creative space as it’s also where I make all my pies), positioned the space heater under the table, dressed in Marcus’ fleece sweat pants and wrote for three months straight while it snowed outside on the fields. That was a precious period of time, of solitude, reflection and healing. 

But it’s been exhausting ever since! My book tour was six weeks. I traveled in April and May over 5,000 miles in the RV, which got a customized paint job for the occasion. The camper is now plastered with colorful decals of my book cover and the words “Beth M. Howard’s RV Book Tour.” You couldn’t miss me driving down the highway! I continue to do public speaking, book events, and press, which I enjoy doing here and there, but the book tour itself landed me in the ER with bronchitis and a ruptured tendon in my neck. 

I run the Pitchfork Pie Stand in the summers, making over 100 pies every weekend Memorial Day to Labor Day. Because of all the press I’ve received—including that CBS This Morning segment, a feature in Real Simple magazine and the front page of the LA Times—my pie stand business more than quadrupled in sales this past summer. I cannot keep up that pace, especially since I make all the pies out of my tiny kitchen using just one oven, so I’ll definitely be making changes next year, probably scaling it way back. Customers and tourists won’t be happy about that, but I cannot manage the growth. My goal is to write another book—and sell the pie TV show, and ideally get “Making Piece” made into a movie—so in order to accomplish my other goals I need to take the focus off of the pie stand. I continue to teach pie classes and that’s something I always enjoy. It’s so rewarding to hear students proclaim with a great sense of accomplishment, “I can’t believe I made this!” By teaching I can ensure that the world will get more pie.

LUCY: And now for the pie! Beth has graciously agreed to share her Shaker Lemon Pie recipe with us: a citrus-y taste of summer no matter what the season. I'm drooling...

SHAKER LEMON PIE

Filling

2 large lemons (Meyer lemons if you can find them, but works with any kind)

2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 eggs (beaten)

3 tablespoons flour

Dough for one double-crust pie  (crust recipe below)

Wash and dry whole lemons. Using a mandoline (serrated knife works too), slice lemons paper thin into a large bowl. (Remove seeds.) Stir in sugar, cover, and set aside at room temperature overnight.

Mix lemon-sugar mixture with beaten eggs, salt and flour. Pour in pie shell. Cover with top crust. Create a decorative crimped edge by pinching dough all the way around. Brush with a beaten egg (for a gorgeous shiny golden brown finish) and then poke with a few ventilation holes (use a paring knife and, if you’re feeling creative, make a design with your holes).

Bake at 425°F for 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 375°F and bake for 25 to 30 minutes more.

Basic Pie Crust

2-1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup Crisco

Dash of salt

Ice water (fill one cup but use only enough to moisten dough)

In a deep bowl, work the butter and shortening into the flour with your hands until marble-sized lumps form. Add ice water a little at a time, sort of “fluffing” the flour. When the dough feels moistened enough do a “squeeze test” and when it holds together you’re done. Do not overwork the dough! It takes very little time and you’ll be tempted to keep touching it, but don’t! Now divide the dough in two, form each half into a disk shape and roll flat and thin to fit your pie dish. Sprinkle flour under and on top of your dough to keep it from sticking to your rolling surface. Trim excess dough to about 1 inch from the dish edge with a scissors. 

LUCY: Thank you Beth and good luck on all your projects! Readers, if you'd like to hear Beth in person, she'll be interviewed on Martha Stewart Living "Book Talk Radio" today at 12:30 CST.