I Love Desserts: Sweety Pies

the appetizer:

Sweety Pies by Patty Pinner, dispenses down-home wisdom with recipes like Flaky Pie Crust; Caramel Tin Roof Pie; and Miss Oleda Halliburton's Easy Pear Pie on a Baking Sheet.

Sweety Pies
An Uncommon Collection
of Womanish Observations, with Pie

by Patty Pinner

Click to Buy Sweety Pies

Sweety Pies brings you 70 scrumptious pie recipes and the stories of the amazing women behind them. Along with their signature pies and baking secrets, these ladies dish out a large dose of life experience. So touching is the connection between pie and baker that you'll feel like Miss Viola Tresvant is right alongside you sprinkling Crumb Topping on your juicy Blueberry Pie or that Sister Baby is giving you her nod of approval for doing her Buttermilk Pie proud!

"An unhappy husband will ask for toasted snow." "You don't want a man who is jealous of nothing or everything." "You've got to learn to eat the meat and spit out the bones." "You can't serve two masters and be true to them both." "Rules change but human nature stays the same."

Humorous and candid, these are just a few of the maxims dispensed to Patty Pinner during her childhood and interspersed throughout her new book, Sweety Pies: An Uncommon Collection of Womanish Observations, With Pie. Author of the critically acclaimed Sweets: A Collection of Soul Food Desserts and Memories, which was selected as one of the best cookbooks of 2003 by the New York Times, Pinner's second book is best described as a cook's memoir. Filled with entertaining anecdotes about the women in her hometown of Saginaw, Michigan that accompany a collection of 70 pie recipes, Sweety Pies is as much a book about love, relationships, and community as it is about pies.

With a writing style that is accessible and intriguing. Pinner assembled Sweety Pies from recipe offerings from the women in her life—family members, friends, and neighbors—who share a part of their personal history. Each recipe in the book appears alongside a story about the woman who inspired the pie: from Marion Newman's Wild Huckleberry Pie to Joyce Carol's Black and Blue Pie to Miss Eudora's Cream of Wheat Custard Pie to Mary Lawrence's Peaches and Cream Pie. In Sweety Pies, baking and storytelling go hand-in-hand and each delectable pie recipe is topped with a double scoop of down-home adages and womanly advice.

With pie being the ultimate expression of comfort food and old-fashioned American values, Pinner notes she made her first at the age of three. 'To me, the pie was a beautiful little confection that symbolized all good things, because even then, I was careful to heed the ancient pie-making admonition that the women in my family held onto: only the finest ingredients will do," Pinner says. "My pie was made from the freshest mud and tap water available. And I garnished it with rose petals I had collected from the rosebushes my mother meticulously cultivated. My pie symbolized what all good pies do: love and caring."

A book like no other, Sweety Pies deserves to be savored from cover to cover, preferably with the reader curled up on the sofa with a piece of pie at hand. It is a book populated by inspiring women whose stories and advice are told by an author of remarkable talents. So settle down with a copy of Sweety Pies and let the women in Patty Pinner's life become an unforgettable part of yours.

70 scrumptious pie recipes, each a specialty of a very special lady
70 richly rewarding stories, some outrageously funny, some unforgettably moving
Dozens of practical tips for making perfect pie EASY as pie, even for beginning bakers
Full-color photos of the pies and nostalgic photos of the pie ladies
A book that will warm your heart as you warm your kitchen with mouthwatering aromas

About the Author

Patty Pinner's first acclaimed book was Sweets: A Collection of Soul Food Desserts and Memories. An employee of the U.S. Postal Service, this Saginaw, Michigan resident also works at her family's restaurant in her "spare" time. In Sweety Pies, Patty invites you to sit down at her child-hood kitchen table for a piece of Mama's Deep-Dish Strawberry Rhubarb.