Beth Howard: Ambassador of Pie
A trip to the American Gothic House
I love this book. I couldn’t put it down. No actually, I have the attention span of a gnat, so I put it down a bunch of times, but I always picked it up again, and I do love it.
I’m not going to mess around with a long rambling preamble like most book reviewers do. I’ve read a great many wonderful travel books over the years (I’m looking at you Paul Theroux and Elizabeth Gilbert), and Beth’s World Piece is among their ranks. Beth brings history, people, and place together in her thoughtful and warm embrace as she travels the world with the humble gift of pie. And the gift isn’t just the pie, it’s also the gift of community that comes with making pies together, with our hands. Beth undertook her trip with the plan for it to be immersive. She didn’t want it to be just a tourist trip. It wasn’t. She taught pie-making classes in nearly every country. The trip took ninety days, she visited nine countries and baked at least 211 pies.
While pies are an ancient tradition in many parts of the world (a recipe for pie was written on a tablet over 2,000 years ago in Sumer), we consider pie as part of our culture as Americans, as the phrase “as American as apple pie” suggests.
Beth, in her journey, becomes an American ambassador, with pie in her diplomatic pouch. Beth tells me that pie had a role in her life since before it began. Her Mom made her Dad a banana creme pie so delicious that he proposed to her.
This book is loving. It’s intimate. It’s a deep effort to understand and appreciate other people as Beth travels the world to promote world peace and understanding, one slice of pie at a time. The book is also courageous because Beth shares her vulnerability. We are all vulnerable; so, so vulnerable, but while most of us-especially Midwesterners-don’t share that, hiding behind carefully constructed facades. Beth doesn’t.
Beautifully written, World Piece is so carefully crafted that I felt I was at Beth’s side as she traveled. As a consequence, when I first met her in Ottumwa a few weeks ago to do an interview, I felt like I was meeting an old friend.
Here is our interview.
Many of us first became aware of Beth during her brush with fame when as a resident of the American Gothic House from 2010 to 2014, she ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand and released her books Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie; and Ms. American Pie: Buttery Good Pie Recipes and Bold Tales from the American Gothic House.
If you aren’t familiar with the story behind the American Gothic House, welcome to earth. The story is here.
I like this version better.
Beth had a reception at the American Gothic House on October 8 to celebrate her book's release. From left to right: Me, our fearless leader Julie Gammack of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, Beth Hoffman, Beth Howard, Ann Garvin, and Susan Beckman.
Here is Beth talking with fans and signing books.
And here’s Beth Hoffman, helping sell books and running the credit card machine. Please consider subscribing to Beth’s Substack In the Dirt, which is about her adventures in farming. Her book Bet the Farm: the Dollars and Sense of Growing Food in America received a glowing review by Jane Smiley, yes, THAT Jane Smiley in the Washington Post! There was an incredible amount of talent sitting at the table that day with the two Beths.
Of course, there were pies. Beautiful, delicious, homemade pies.
Here’s an excerpt from the book World Piece; A Pie Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and Understanding:
I will never know the impact I had on others, but I do know the impact others had on me. I still remember the woman in Greece who carried my heavy suitcase down into the depths of the metro station and made sure I got on the right train. To this day she reminds me that the world can still surprise you with random acts of kindness from strangers. “Holiness is always tied to little gestures,” Pope Francis said a few weeks after my return. There are little gestures of holiness happening all around us if we take the time to recognize and appreciate them, which is easier to do when you turn off the news. And whether it’s the use of a turn signal or letting someone with fewer items go ahead of you in the grocery line, there are countless ways to be kind. Enough acts of kindness could one day add up to world peace.
Please also consider subscribing to the Iowa Capital Dispatch which features some of the work of members of the The Iowa Writers Collaborative, for which we are grateful.
The Collaborative is offering a special feature for paid subscribers. Those subscribers will be invited to participate in the “Office Lounge,” a monthly Zoom gathering of Iowa Writer’s Collaborative members. The Office Lounge call will be on the last Friday of the month unless it falls on a holiday. This month the Office Lounge will be on October 28. It will run from noon to 1 p.m. We will send the Zoom link to all paid subscribers the week before the last Friday.
It’s going to be fun. Interesting. Educational, and did I say fun? There will always be free content, but a contribution is most welcome and comes with the Office Lounge bonus. I look forward to meeting you!
Please invite your friends to join. We are the Iowa Writers Collaborative and are trying to make the world a better place.
Here we are, in alphabetical order.
I can’t wait to read the book! Thanks for the shout out Bob. It was such a beautiful day at the American Gothic house too!
Love this.