bethmhoward

Author, Blogger, Pie Baker

Beth M. Howard is an author, blogger, radio commentator, and now she can add  documentary filmmaker to the list. She is also known as “the pie lady” after living in the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, where from 2010 to 2014 she ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand. Her books include World Piece: A Pie Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and UnderstandingMaking Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie; the cookbook, Ms. American Pie: Buttery Good Pie Recipes and Bold Tales from the American Gothic House; and Hausfrau Honeymoon: Love, Language, and Other Misadventures in Germany. She has written for the New York Times, Real Simple, Country Living, and many other publications; she’s been featured on CNN, CBS This Morning, BBC, NPR, and more; and she has given a TEDx talk about the healing powers of pie. She is a regular commentator on Tri States Public. She is currently making a documentary film called PIEOWA. Beth divides her time between Iowa and Los Angeles. 

Pieowa: A documentary in the baking

 

Coming in 2024, a documentary feature about the ways pie is so deeply woven into the cultural fabric of Iowa. For more details, go to the PIEOWA page on my pie website. And sign up for my newsletter to get updates. You won’t want to miss this.


My latest book, World Piece, is featured in FORBES

World Piece: A Baker’s Global Quest for Peace, Love, and Understanding, my memoir about my round-the-world pie-making trip to promote goodwill and cultural understanding, has been getting great press. Check out the features in FORBES, Shondaland, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, and on Iowa Public Radio.

You can buy it in paperback or ebook on AmazonBarnes & Noble, Kobo, and other sites — or from your local bookstore, which you can locate via Bookshop.org.

To read the first chapter, go to my World Piece page.

Ms. American Pie is now in paperback

If you like pie, you’ll love my cookbook, Ms. American Pie, now in paperback. Lighter in weight but packed with the same great recipes, photos, and essays, it makes a great gift. Or maybe your old one is so full of stains from using it so much you need a new one. Either way, it’s available now. Just in time for Thanksgiving — and for holiday gifts.

Buy it now on Amazon, Bookshop, or order it from your local book store. Available in paperback and in ebook formats.

Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie

Making Piece is the story of how I turned to pie making after losing my husband, and how the journey led me back to my birthplace of Iowa and into the American Gothic House. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be hungry for pie.

“One of the best non-cookbook food books of 2012” Serious Eats

 “One of the best books of 2012” — San Francisco Book Review

 “One unique, crazy-quilt, truly American tale of reinvention.” — Publishers Weekly

Order from Amazon, Bookshop, your local bookstore or library.

Hausfrau Honeymoon: Love, Laundry and Other Misadventures in Germany

The prequel to Making Piece, this is the story of how I met my husband and moved to Germany. Uh, yeah, that didn’t go so well. But our marriage survived it.

Available in paperback or ebook from Amazon, Bookshop, your local bookstore or library.

Recognize this painting?

You know American Gothic by Grant Wood. But did you know the house in the painting is real? It’s in Eldon, Iowa, and I lived in it for four years, from 2010 to 2014. I stayed even after discovering 7-foot-long snakes also living in it! I ran the Pitchfork Pie Stand inside the house while, outside, tourists posed in front day and night, sometimes peering in my windows. I occasionally go back to do a pop-up pie stand.

TEDx Talk: The Healing Power of Pie

FOR MORE…

Visit my main website, The World Needs More Pie, or follow me on my Facebook pie page

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310.463.6294