Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful memory
Review: This book brought me back to wonderful memories. I loved this book! You will too. I have given it too my friends as gifts and they have loved it. My grandmother baked the best strawberry-rhubarb pie. The crust was flaky and flavorful. It was sweet but the rhubarb gave it a tangy flavor. Most of all it was filled with love. On a summer day to come home from school to a piece of fresh baked pie with a glass of milk. Life doesn't get any better than that. Ms. Le Draoulec thank you for bringing back that memory. I read the book every day on the train to work and savored every moment of it. It is fun, inspiring, witty and charming.
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Summary: Delicious Fun, Inectious Enthusiasm! Sit Back and Enjoy!
Review: This book is a delightful mix of food writing, recipe book, travelogue, Americana, and good literature. It is light, fluffy and fun, and reading it might just change your life, if you let it.Le Draoulec has a love of small-town America that gives this delightful book the flavor of a Charles Kurault essay. She spent several weeks crossing the United States with two simple rules -- stay off the big freeways and look for great pie. To add to the fun, she took a girlfriend, someone who had explored Australia but never small-town America. The two set off into the unknown, and quickly give themselves over to this delightful adventure.("We tossed our running shoes in the trunk, and that's where they stayed for the next three weeks.") As a lover of pie, a baker of pie, as someone who often takes trips on the small roads and who loves to stop at non-chain restaurants, I loved the idea. Le Draoulec delivers. This book is as sweet, wholesome and gently spicy as a good homemade apple pie. But wait... did I mention the recipes? She didn't just find pie, she came back with recipes! I have tried just a few, and each so far has been great. Underlying all this great material is the fact that Pascale Le Draoulec can write. She has a wonderfully light touch with langauge -- never awkward. Her literary references land as fun, mind-expanding, rather than reminder's of the author's education. And, yes, reading a book with this much love in it can change your life. I am more likely now to go ahead and order dessert when I see pie on the menu, and I am more likely to stop in a small, independent restaurant where I might find pie. Just last week, I got to tell an Austin chef how good her pie is. She glowed. My husband just sat back, smiled, and watched the two of us share our passion for pie. As soon as you start talking pie with someone, you're not strangers anymore.
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Summary: Great road trip, great recipes, great read!
Review: This book is very well written, entertaining, useful and funny. What more can you ask for in a book? It will appeal to anyone who loves a road trip, food or America. It takes you on a action-packed journey around the country, with lots of interesting sites and great characters. This book moved me on many levels as I recalled my own pie memories and stepped back to look at what I make time for (and don't make time for) in my life. Pascale explores not only pie, but American culture and priorities. We are so focused on the quick and easy, that some of our greatest treasures are at stake (pie and the time to bake one). Not only is it a great read, but it is a gold mine of pie recipes from the backroads of America. And, to top it off, it includes charming black & white photos that capture the trip and the pie bakers. I highly recommend this book. (Great gift item!)
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Summary: Absolutely Delicious!!!
Review: This book took me back to my Midwest roots, a slower lifestyle, friendly neighbors and home-cookin'. The stories at each stop are peppered with wonderful pie recipes. As I've noticed in life, everyone you meet has a wonderful story to tell. You just have to listen. This book has inspired me to perfect my pie-making this Summer, forget the beach & fitting into that swimsuit. I now have a higher (heavier??)calling. Thanks Pascale!!
Rating: 
Summary: Thelma and Louise go for pie
Review: This books combines the perspectives of the roadtrip, the female "buddy adventure," and a food book all in one, as author Le Draoulec and two different female friends go on two different roadtrips to explore the world of pie. In her search for pie, the author encounters interesting characters and snapshots of America and Americana.
A downside is that the author's engagement is somewhat... superficial. By her own admission, her choosing of pie as the theme for her roadtrip is arbitrary. As a journalist always looking for a story, she is constantly on the lookout for certain tidbits, soundbites, and events of interest, and this renders a certain self-consciouness to the proceedings.
For example: In Memphis, an old man mentions a pie stop that local people go to after church: "I was glad he brought church up," the writer says, "because Kris and I had a hankering for some live, soul-searing spirituals." She goes on to describe their morning adventure as two 30-something white yuppie women in an all-black southern church. How phony, opportunistic, whitebread and contrived can you get? That, and a few too many predictable self-deprecatory "to hell with our waistlines -- we're eating more pie" jokes of the "Cathy" comicstrip sensibility -- wears thin after awhile.
Some of those aspects may be pet peeves on my part. But a very real problem with the book is a significant loss of momentum between sections (between her first and second pie trips) that makes it read almost like two different books.
All that said, this is a fun and entertaining book. It will make you excited about pie, and for cooks there are probably some great recipes. Despite some superficiality, there are some compassionate and interesting portraits of the people they encounter. And in the end, the author digs a bit deeper into herself, and finally connects with her subject matter. I found the concluding two pages to be moving and memorable.
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Summary: PIE QUEST ACROSS AMERICA
Review: This is a lovely book for all pie makers and pie lovers. The quest for pie is so pure that doors are open to Ms Le Draoulec that might now have been to others on a different journey.
I too love to collect "pie lore", the tales and thoughts of pie makers. The particular ones in this book are a delight.
The first part of the book was intriguing but I was absolutely in love with the tale by the time we meet Juanita and her Rhubarb Cream Pie.
Many books with recipes fail at this point. The story is good but what about the recipes? Do these recipes prove to be good? Well Jaunita's pie was simple and just darn divine!! It charmed
me and my basic-apple-pie husband had to have seconds!
THANKS Pascale for the heavenly experience.
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Summary: A wonderful vicarious quest!
Review: Those of us who grew up eating American pie will thank Pascale for the book. Reading it causes childhood memories to gently waft by as our taste buds salivate for our mom's/grandma's/aunt's home cooking... Those of you who did not grow up with American pie, like the author, will enjoy her introduction and insights into the heart of American's homespun culture. My husband and I had the pleasure of meeting Pascale and Ty during a recent vacation in the Caribbean. As we snorkeled, ate fresh and jerked seafood, and challenged crocodiles to prove they were alive, we learned that American Pie was to be released the following week. The first thing I did when I returned home was to order a copy. Having thoroughly enjoyed Pascale's verbal descriptions of her encounters, I believed her book would be a colorful read. I wasn't disappointed. Of one woman, she'd said "her words came from her mouth like butterflies". I later recognized that same woman when I read "She moved in closer and her words began to take flight."
Refreshingly curious and sincerely interested in others, Pascale is unabashed in pursuing her quest and sharing her finds with her readers. It probably won't be a surprise that home baked pies -- and those who will talk about pie -- seem easiest to find on the back roads in rural America. Both the pies and the people are fascinating (yes, recipes are included). As you read the book you will experience not only a journey across America, but a connection with people who have time and wisdom to share. For Pascale, this journey helped her to move on in her own life. For readers, the book provides anecdotes about people, food, and places that are not to be missed. You'll enjoy meeting Paul Willis and his hogs, listening to Alma Snell and soaking in her words of wisdom, and seeing Mammy's Cupboard in Mississippi.
If variety is the spice of life, it's all here. Enjoy!
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Summary: a wonderful slice of life & pie!
Review: What a wonderful book -- Pascale's stories are simple
tales of simple people and great pie!
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Summary: SCRUMPTIOUS!!!
Review: what fun! reading this book is like being invited along on a rollicking road trip with your funniest girlfriends, meeting fabulous characters who've escaped from central casting, and getting to indulge in your favorite dessert, all at the same time. it's much more than just a book about pie - although the recipes are great, too....it's really a book about america, and the american national character, and how that shapes us all. there are many heroes in these pages. they don't all wear uniforms; some wear aprons! these people are a joy to meet.
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