The World Needs Pie
July holds deeply rooted memories that link me to Grant Wood prairie landscapes, Prairie Lights Bookstore and Summer Writers Festivals in Iowa City, and as it happened one summer, to an apple pie I made in the farmhouse kitchen of author Beth M. Howard many moons ago. Then this July, my longtime Los Angeles friend Sheila Berman informed me of an article on Substack by Beth Howard about a documentary film she’s made recently entitled PIOWA.
I responded: “Dear Sheila, believe it or not, I’ve read Beth M. Howard’s 2012 memoir about how she dealt with grief by making pies after the death of her husband Marcus. I also helped her make apple pies in her Iowa farmhouse kitchen that same year!” I then shared the story of that visit fourteen years ago. Here’s what I recall—
Following the death of her husband, Howard had written and published a book entitled Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie about the healing power of pies. From March through May of 2012, the author traveled around the country in a large van that served as a food truck where she made and sold apple pies at stops along her book tour. On the side of her van, a blue and white gingham map of America announced her book tour “Pie Across the Nation.” Her website read: TheWorldNeedsMorePie.com
Following her book tour that spring, Howard had moved back to her hometown in Eldon, Iowa. The small town is the site of the iconic American Gothic House (built in 1881-82)—painted in 1930 by artist Grant Wood. By 1974, the house had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places and was donated to the State Historical Society of Iowa in 1991 to be used as an educational center. During the time Howard was back home, she stayed busy baking apple pies in the historic farmhouse’s tiny kitchen and sold them on Saturdays and Sundays at her Pitchfork Pie Stand in the front yard.
That summer, I’d read Howard’s book and sent her an email asking if Kit and I could drive up from our home in Missouri. I was dying to see her piemaking operation firsthand and talk to her about her book. Beth replied immediately with an invitation to drop by her pie kitchen the following Friday.
Early that day, Kit and I headed north on Highway 63 to the Iowa border and took the turnoff to Eldon. This is a landscape of simple country towns on straight two-lane highways, one connected to the next by small family farms and gentle rolling hills. Intersections with four-way stop signs and not much more other that an occasional gas station and convenience store. After arriving in Eldon, we found Beth in the old farmhouse kitchen, covered with flour as she busily rolled out crusts and assembled the pies she’d be selling over the weekend.
Before I knew it, she handed me an apron and had me peeling apples while she rolled out pie crusts. At some point, she sat down, still wearing her apron, and signed my copy of her book. She also talked about a mission she was planning—to share her piemaking skills with people in countries around the world. Three years later, Howard “packed up her rolling pin, a paring knife, two plastic mixing bowls, and a bare minimum of clothes,” and set off on a three-month, round-the-world trip to demonstrate her belief that making pies can help change the world. That trip to nine countries resulted in her 2022 book, World Piece: A Pie Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and Understanding.
The author continues to live in Iowa on a farm where she writes, bakes pies, and advocates for peace. Visit her website that I mentioned earlier for information about her books, Ted Talk, magazine articles, and the documentary film PIOWA that my friend Sheila read about recently. Then get out your rolling pin, peel a pile of apples, make a pie, and share it with friends. Your crust doesn’t have to be perfect. Just remember what Beth Howard believes to her core. No matter where you travel, pie is a recipe for love.
