PIE: A Tale Full of Sweet Inspiration

I have never really appreciated pie the way I should. But it is not entirely my fault. I wasn’t exposed to great pie making as a kid. My mom wasn’t into pie, and my grandmother, who, I am told, was a great pie maker in her day, grew a tad lazy in her later years. My memory is that she’d buy a premade shell, fill it with instant chocolate pudding, slather it with Cool Whip, and call that Chocolate Cream Pie. If that was pie, I was not impressed. Just dish me up a piece of cake, please.

I maintained my low view of pie until our family listened to a recording of the book Pie by Sarah Weeks. As we journeyed through this light-hearted mystery, the wonder of pie began to beckon me.

Each chapter began with a recipe from the collection of Polly Portman, the Pie Queen of Ipswitch, Pennsylvania. If I had been reading the book out loud or on my own I’m not sure what I would have done. Would I have read the recipes in detail? Skimmed them? Skipped them all together? I guess I’ll never know, but I do know that as each recipe was read aloud to me, slowly and steadily by Polly herself (I know the reader was just an actress, but allow me to pretend that Polly is real and that she read her beloved recipes to me), I found myself listening closely, noting the differences between recipes, becoming curious about terms like blind bake, fluted edges, and lattice top.

Though the language and techniques of this culinary art form intrigued me, my favorite part of each recipe was the “reminder” at the end. Aunt Polly’s recipes weren’t complete until she made a note to remind herself who loved that particular pie and the date of their birthday or anniversary. And that is what made Polly and her pies so special. “She baked pies for the pure joy of it and delighted in the pleasure it brought to others” (page 172).

Interestingly enough, the story begins as the folks of Ipswitch are grieving Polly’s passing. We get to know her entirely through flashbacks and the memories of her niece, Alice. As Alice processes her loss she joins with her friend Charlie to track down the thief who is after Aunt Polly’s secret, award-winning crust recipe. We meet a variety of interesting characters and learn that the obvious answer isn’t always the correct one. The plot kept us guessing and laughing and actually anxious to hop in the car for the next leg of our trip. 

An inspiring role model, lots of laughter, and fourteen pie recipes to try...who would have thought all of that could come from a title so short and sweet?

Click here for my version of Aunt Polly’s Peach Pie.