A Slice of Apple Pie with a Scoop of Inspiration

When I published Wordless Wednesday: Animals, Outdoors and Pie last month, I included some photos of meeting Beth Howard, author of Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie. Since that post, many of you asked more about Beth, her pie bus, and whether I made her famous apple pie. So for all of you readers and curious bakers (or pie eaters), here’s an update to those photos.

Lets start at the beginning. Beth Howard is a writer and famous pie baker. She quit a very successful job in the dot-com industry (back when it was a big dot-com industry) to move to Los Angeles and bake pies in a small bakery. Having always had a connection to pie, Beth found this work an extremely gratifying experience. She also started a blog – The World Needs More Pie – to document her pie endeavors.

Several years ago, she experienced the deep tragedy of her husband passing away unexpectedly. Beth found her resilience and was able to move on through – you guessed it – pie. When the book was published, she began a book tour across the country with her famous pie RV. I’m not going into all the details about why pie and how this happened. You’ll have to read the book for that. But I will say that Beth’s story is extremely inspiring, funny and delicious, all at the same time. I highly recommend checking out her website and reading Making Piece.

Oh, and if you are in Eldon, Iowa visiting the famous American Gothic House (made famous by the painting of the woman, man and pitchfork in front of the house), be sure to visit Beth’s Pitchfork Pie Stand. Beth lives INSIDE the American Gothic House and serves freshly-baked pie on weekends throughout the summer.

Here’s me and Beth outside her famous pie mobile.

Here’s Sophie starring intently at Beth demonstrating her crust making skills.

So after craving pie every single night reading Beth’s book, I had to try her famous recipe for myself. A few weekends ago, I decided to try my hand at making Beth’s famous apple pie. For some reason, I always thought making an apple pie was so daunting. But it really was not at all. Maybe because I had this cute apple peeler helping me.

Here is the pie before it was baked and minus the top crust. It’s even beautiful uncooked.

And, drum roll please … a slice of heaven!

I can now say I know what all the fuss is about. It was incredible! Bryan thought it was as good as a Costco apple pie, which is really quite a compliment to Beth because he LOVES that Costco pie. The recipe’s in the book (can’t give it away on the blog – sorry!).

So thank you, Beth, for an inspiring read and a delicious pie recipe that will now become a staple in our house.