Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment
Review: After hearing the author interviewed twice on Public Radio..... I actually went out and paid full price for what has turned out to be "dumpster pie" in the author's own words.What a disappointment this book was. As a long time pie lover, pie maker, and stopper at any restaurant that advertises "home made pie",I was that anxious to read a book about the journey that I always wanted to make. This author admittedly didn't know anything about pie when she started. She met some terrific people but what the reader learns is that the author is short of maturity, acting more like a moody teeny-bopper bouncing around the U.S. than a food writer. Impolitely keeping friends waiting for dinner and showing up uninvited for Thanksgiving dinner at a stranger's home is supposed to be considered an admirable part of her quirky personality?? Criticizing Jefferson Davis pie because it isn't politically correct?? Refusing to taste Derby pie because the aforementioned Jefferson Davis pie put her in a bad mood! Please! I am looking forward to trying the recipes in the book because I believe they come from fellow pie lovers and you can be assured I won't be putting any slices in the glove compartment and forget about them! I sure wish a grown up had written this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh My what a Pie
Review: American Pie is a well-crafted book. I read this book after my daughter gave it to me for Christmas, and I could not put it down. I just wanted Pascale's journey to continue and continue. As I read of each stop I could imagine myself meeting and liking the people she met. Sprinkled throughout the book were quiet and somber moments, like the time a bear trapper told Pascale he once was going to commit suicide, but didn't because of pie. But mostly this book is full of great recipes and notable people. This book is a great tonic to those of us who think all this flag waving is hooey. Really the patriotic people are the folks in American Pie, like Tootie Guirard, Minister Edgar Crawford, Martha and Curtis Purvis, and Elva Twitchell, oh I could go on and on. Try the "Fike's Lemon Pecan Pie from Pine Bluff, Arkansas" recipe, it'll knock your socks off.
Rating:
Summary: Oh My what a Pie
Review: American Pie is a well-crafted book. I read this book after my daughter gave it to me for Christmas, and I could not put it down. I just wanted Pascale's journey to continue and continue. As I read of each stop I could imagine myself meeting and liking the people she met. Sprinkled throughout the book were quiet and somber moments, like the time a bear trapper told Pascale he once was going to commit suicide, but didn't because of pie. But mostly this book is full of great recipes and notable people. This book is a great tonic to those of us who think all this flag waving is hooey. Really the patriotic people are the folks in American Pie, like Tootie Guirard, Minister Edgar Crawford, Martha and Curtis Purvis, and Elva Twitchell, oh I could go on and on. Try the "Fike's Lemon Pecan Pie from Pine Bluff, Arkansas" recipe, it'll knock your socks off.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn't put the book down!
Review: Before I read this book, I didn't think I had much of a relationship with pie. But as I lost myself in the stories from across America, I remembered a day in my childhood when my German-born mother attempted her first pie with me. The book brought back long forgotten memories of that warmly lit kitchen of my childhood and the bonding of the moment over our apple pie. Pascale Le Draoulec captures the stories from the road in a way that instantly pulls you in and takes you to a different place. I read the book while confined to bed for my pregnancy and it was a way for me to be free and travel the roads with her. Her descriptions of the places and people she visited were as divine as the blueberry apple pie from recipe in the book. Halfway into the book, I got online and bought another copy for my mother-in-law. It is a book that reaches across the generations.
Rating:
Summary: Author Needs a Pie-In-The-Face
Review: Big disappointment. The author admits that she doesn't even LIKE pie, so what is she doing pretending to write a book about it. The low point is when they visit a pie-baker who's now in a nursing home and find it necessary to note that she just soiled her clothes. Oh brother. This book seems to be written by some sort of a spoiled brat. I don't think she'd ever even been in a car before that wasn't driven by a chauffeur. Someone give her a Coconut Cream Pie In the Face, please!
Rating: 
Summary: Problematic Recipes
Review: By the middle of this book I found I didn't much like Ms. Le Draoulec, who seemed more intent on collecting other people's old mixing bowls than on truly making a connection between pie and the disintegrating national identity. She's flip and facile and ultimately fairly shallow; she's an Anne Lamott wannabe and nowhere near the mark. And I could forgive all of it if the recipes had been vetted by someone paying attention. The very first recipe in the book tells you to divide "the mound [of dough] into three equal parts . . . and roll out each piece of dough." In the next sentence it instructs you to "Lay the dough into the bottom of a 9-inch pie pan." All three parts? Or only one part? The next paragraph tells you how to make the filling (for huckleberry pie) and instructs you to "set [the filling] aside, high on a shelf, away from dogs." And then immediately you are told to "Fill with huckleberry mixture." Fill WHAT with huckleberry mixture? The three parts of dough you just laid in the pan? Oops, you're supposed to lay "the top crust" on top of the pie before you bake it.... I'm not a dope and I know how to bake a pie. I also know that someone who's never made a pie before could be confused by this, as by the recipe for Belgian Prune Pie which tells you to spread something called Cheese Topping "over the face of your pie" BEFORE you have made the crust or "put your prune filling in." By the way, after you spread the filling on the crust (which is made with mashed potatoes and no recognizable leavener, yet which is supposed to rise "until it doubles in size"), you're told to "add the cheese topping in a circle." These problems, combined with the author's contrived approach to the whole topic, rendered this book a sore disappointment -- a good idea, executed by someone who just didn't have the soul (or the editor) to make it work. "Hey kids, let's make a pie: I've got a dented can of apples and a frozen crust..."
Rating:
Summary: Up with Pie, But Down With This Author!
Review: Except for some terrific pie recipes (Lemon Pecan and Blueberry Apple are two of the best), this book is a terrible disappointment. The two women on this "pie journey" don't even LIKE pie, and one of them continually laments that the 'tartes' of her French youth are a much tastier treat. It is almost painful to read some of her remarks about people she meets on the road, she even is as ill-mannered as to refer to their creations as "dumpster pie". How nice for these poor folks, most of whom will pick up the book and read her cruel words. Why not just leave these particular pies out of the book altogether? Both travelers admit to disliking Coconut Cream Pie, yet they continue to order it at every stop they make. (They whine about pies topped with too much real whipped cream! Any pie lover knows there's no such thing as too much real whipped cream!) Actually, neither of the ladies eat much pie at all on this journey, too worried about their waistlines. They seek out spas and gyms to work on their figures, instead of taking walks along the hills and valleys of this beautiful country. They wasted their time, and I wasted my time reading about these pretentious, cold women.
Rating:
Summary: traveling down the highways and pie ways
Review: First-generation Franco-American Pasquale Le Draoulec has never had a pie (she has eaten the French tarte and explains the difference) when she decides, on a road trip from San Francisco to New York, to start looking for different pies and pie makers on the backroads of America. With her friend Kris in her car "Betty", they meet scores of people in the most unusual ways. If someone doesn' make pie themselves, they always seem to know the perfect place to get a piece. And no mater how mean they seem when the women first encounter them, they are always happy to talk about pie. "Pie", she writes, "brings even the crustiest people out of their shells." One road trip is not enough for the scope of this subject, and the ladies make a couple of more trips, with "pie tips" (one garnered from crashing a funeral) helping them find their way. The people they meet also pose for photographs and, more imporytnt, share their favorite recipe and tips. Everyone has their own advice for making pie, and it is all gathered here. It is a cute snapshot of pie in different states, ending with a trip to our nation's capital!!! Read and enjoy with a slice of your favorite pie today!
Rating:
Summary: A delightfully rich slice of literary pie
Review: Having grown up in the rural south, I am a child of church suppers and family reunions, and as such, I am an expert in pie. Having moved on from small town gatherings to big city living, I was very happy to be reassured by Ms. Le Draoulec's book that pride in pie has survived the rush to nostaliga of so many of our traditions. Ms. le Draoulec search for pie on the backroads of America uncovered a great deal more than some really fantastic recipes. Told with the same sense of thoughtfulness and introspection as is a quality of any good "road book," American Pie is about survival of continuity, love and faith in the America's small towns. Ms. le Draoulec "gets" her subjects and tells their stories with a sense of delight and wonder. If I didn't know she was French, I'd swear she was Southern!
Rating: 
Summary: American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back R
Review: I devoured this book as fast as my 12 year old son eats blueberry pie: Three big bites and it's gone. As someone who enjoys baking pies and passing on the skills and enjoyment to my three sons, I thoroughly enjoyed this quick and easy summer-reading travelogue. Pascale has written a book that got me to rethink my preference for fruit pies and has inspired me to try my hand at sweet potato and lemon pies. If you enjoy baking, or just eating, pie and have fond memories of the pies of your youth, you will appreciate this book. It's at times touching, amusing and insightful.
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