After reading PIE aloud in class, Mrs. Deets’ 5th graders from North Wales Elementary School in North Wales, Pennsylvania decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a pie party.  How cool is that?  Using recipes from the book they made seven pies –lemon chess, cherry, peanut butter raspberry, apple, key lime, and two chocolate cream pies. The chocolate cream and peanut butter raspberry were the class favorites.

If anyone else out there feels inspired to try a little pie baking, make sure to send me photographs and you can join Mrs. Deets’ bakers here on the pie wall of fame.

MEET THE BAKERS!

Dear Friends:

I’ve been getting a lot of letters from my readers asking why I didn’t include Aunt Polly’s secret pie-crust recipe in the book, PIE.  The truth is… I was afraid to!  People are VERY particular about the kind of piecrust they like. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone by including a recipe that wouldn’t live up to their expectations.  So I decided to let my readers imagine Polly’s piecrust exactly the way they would want it to taste.  I must also gently point out that PIE is a work of fiction, which means that Aunt Polly and her piecrust are also fictional. But the letters keep pouring in so I’ve decided to start collecting non-fiction pie-crust recipes, and posting them here.  If you have a favorite recipe you’d like to share with the world, please send it to me at authorweeks@aol.com.

Happy baking,

Sarah

From Michele Stuart, of Michele’s Pies in Westport, CT. **

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

¾ plus 2 TBS Crisco, cold

5 TBS ice-cold water

½ cup heavy cream*

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour and salt.  Add the Crisco to the flour mixture.  Either with a pastry blender or with your fingertips, mix the ingredients together with an up-and-down chopping motion until the dough forms course, pea-size crumbs.  Note: I prefer the old-fashioned finger option, but take care not to overhandle the dough, because it will become difficult to work with –when dough is overhandled, the Crisco becomes too incorporated.  In the perfect pie, the Crisco will have a marbleized look, and you will actually be able to see Crisco swirls within the uncooked dough.

Add the ice cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, delicately incorporating each tablespoon into the flour mixture before you add the next.  You may have to use 1 more or 1 less tablespoon of water than the amount recommended, depending upon the humidity in your kitchen at the time of baking.  You will know you have added just the right amount of water when the dough forms a ball that easily holds together.

Wrap the ball of dough with plastic and place it in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes.

*( If you are using a top crust and want it to be nice and golden brown, Michele suggests that you brush it with heavy cream before baking.)

(**I had the pleasure of doing a presentation with Michele at the Westport Library recently.  She really knows her pie!  Check out her website: http://www.michelespies.com  and for more great recipes and a detailed description of how to roll out a piecrust look for her book:  PERFECT PIES published by Ballantine Books.)

Want to try something fun?  Try making somet mini pies in jars. Learn about it here: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/09/single-serving-pie-in-a-jar/

How happy I was to receive this bundle of wonderful letters and cards from some of the students at Greenwich Academy!  I spent two days in October visiting with grades K through 4, talking about my books and doing writing workshops.  I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, and it made me very happy to hear that the students had enjoyed themselves too.  MANY THANKS to Leesa Singleton who arranged my visit and Kerri and Andrea for making sure all the books were there to be signed.  I look forward to visiting with the GA middle schoolers soon! 

I’ve never been to Hawaii myself, but I feel like I got a little taste of it in the mail today when I received these BEAUTIFUL letters from some very talented 4^th grade students at Alvah A. Scott Elementary School in Aiea, Hawaii.  They were writing to tell me that they had read and enjoyed Mrs. McNosh and the Great Big Squash in their English Language Learning Class.

I am sure that Mrs. McNosh is just as thrilled as I am to know  that she and her giant squash are helping kids learn English in Hawaii. Now if we can just convince Ms. Brogle and her students to invite us to come to Hawaii to meet them in person we’ll be all set.  Just kidding!  Well, not really!  Just say the word and we’ll pack our suntan lotion and flip flops and hop on the next plane.  Thanks for making my day!

I am SO excited about this book!  Writing it was by far the most fun I’ve ever had writing a book.  My brilliant editor, David Levithan made the process of writing and re-writing completely painless –which is no small feat.  Then there was the AMAZING “Pie Palooza” party at Scholastic to celebrate the release of the ARC (Advance Reader Copy).  I got to go to ALA in New Orleans, where I spoke to hundreds of wonderful librarians about the book and ate –you guessed it – A LOT of pie.  And today I received a starred review from School Library Journal, to add to the one I received from Kirkus earlier this week.  My head is spinning from it all.  So how did I celebrate all this good news?  By baking a pie of course!  I would have taken a picture of it, but Jim, my fiance polished it off before I could get my camera out.  I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am to everyone who helped in the making of this book – from the people who shared family pie recipes with me, to the folks at Scholastic who have done everything and more to support the book, to my family and friends and…am I gushing?  Sorry, I can’t help it.  I am overjoyed.  I’ll be on tour this fall and hope to have an opportunity to meet some of you along the way.  In the meantime, send me your favotie pie crust recipes!!!!!!!

The very first review is in…Here’s a little taste of what Richie’s Picks (one of my favorite book blogs) had to say about PIE…

“PIE, set in Ipswitch during the summer of 1955, is a high-spirited, hoot of a whodunit for upper elementary and middle school readers.  This tale is going to inspire a mess of pie baking in your neck of the woods…Those who are familiar with a certain famous and esteemed children’s literature award are going to get quite a belly laugh out of reading the history and details of the national pie making award that Polly wins an unprecedented thirteen times in a row.  And as sure as life imitates art, I bet that there will be a passel of people dishing about PIE when the year-end lists are being compiled.”

I had SO much fun writing the book PIE, that I guess it should come as no surprise that I’m also having fun getting ready to send it out into the world.  My fabulous, amazing, incredible editor, David Levithan arranged to have a “Pie Palooza Party” at Scholastic to celebrate the release of the ARC (Advance Reader Copy).  He and I donned a couple of homemade gingham aprons (which I picked up at a thrift store in Nebraska during a recent author visit) and best of all there was lots of, you guessed it, pie!  In keeping with the message of the book, which is all about doing things for the joy of doing them   – some of the good folks at Scholastic actually took time out of their busy schedules to bake pies for the party.  I baked several varieties myself – the most popular of which seemed to be the lemon chess (recipe contributed by my Aunt Jane) but my personal favorite of the day was an oatmeal pie, which sounds a little weird, but actually tasted like a big oatmeal cookie.  Yum, gotta get that recipe!

I am beside myself with excitement to announce that Hollywood has discovered my book!  Things are still very much at the beginning stages – but there is a script and….it’s wonderful! Hooray!  The super talented writer Garry Williams has done a great job of capturing the spirit of the book, while transforming it into a terrific screenplay.  All the other details are still top secret, but as soon as I have anything to report, believe you me, I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops.  Keep your fingers crossed that Heidi and Mama and Bernie will be hitting the big screen soon.

Every day I receive e-mails from kids asking questions for book reports or class projects they are doing based on my books.  Many of the answers to these questions can be found on my website.  The ABOUT ME page has a lot of useful info and so does the BIO page.  For kids who are writing about So B. It there’s a whole section called “Are you doing a book report?”  Go to BOOKS, then NOVELS, then SO B. IT and you will find the link in the upper right hand corner of the page.  If, after you’ve explored those pages, you still have questions –this is an excellent place to ask them.  I check my BLOG every day, and this is also a place where you can see the kinds of things other kids are asking and the answers they have received.  So, go ahead and ask!  SW

Mmmmmmm. Hot from the oven. Looks delicious, doesn't it?

Peanutbutter Raspberry Cream Pie - before adding the whipped cream.

WEDNESDAY, August 4, 2010  I just finished writing the first draft of my new novel, PIE.  It’s with my editor, David Levithan now and while I wait for his comments, I’ve decided to try out the 16 pie recipes I’m including in the book.  The recipes have come to me from all over the country and I’ve had a ball collecting them.Tonight I made peanutbutter raspberry cream pie. My friend Rachel Yoder sent me the recipe.   Rachel is a teacher from New Berlin, IL whose school I visited a few years ago.  This recipe is a Yoder family favorite.  I served it to my son Nat and his friend Nick tonight and they LOVED it.  It’s kind of like a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk all whisked together into a pie.  Yum!  If you have a favorite pie recipe, please send it to me, or post it here on my BLOG.

Another day, another pie. Today I made blueberry pie with a lattice crust.

Hailey and I made a cherry pie together.

THURSDAY, August 5, 2010  It’s a rainy day up in the Catskills.  A perfect day for making PIE!  I just pulled this blueberry pie out of the oven and the whole house smells wonderful.  I hope that Natty and Nick have room for more pie.  On FRIDAY, August 6, 2010 I tried out my friend Amy’s buttermilk pie.  I swear I could have eaten this whole pie by myself.  Not everybody was as crazy about it as I was though so I thought I’d better make a more traditional pie for the family dinner we had on Saturday.  Hailey, my step daughter came for a visit so she and I made a sour cherry pie together.  It was a big hit.

Buttermilk Pie!!!!!

And as if we didn’t have enough pies to choose from, my friend Dan showed up on Sunday with the most delicious peach pie I’ve ever tasted.  It takes a lot of time to make a peach pie with fresh peaches.  You have to dip the peaches in boiling water to loosen the skins, but in the end it’s worth the effort because the taste is out of this world.

No canned peaches- this pie is made with real peaches, each one peeled and sliced by Dan/

Dan Lebson - master pie maker!

I have to say I’ve really been enjoying doing all of this baking.

You've heard of crumping? This is crimping.

And it’s been a lot of fun sharing recipes with friends.  However, this week I’ll be here at the house with just Mia, our dog for company, and as much I think she might enjoying eating pies, I’m going to take a little break from baking for a few days.

AUGUST 23, 2010

The notes are back from my editor, David Levithan and I’m now hard at work on the 2nd draft of PIE.  Does this mean I

Apple blackberry pie

have no time for baking anymore?  Nope.  This weekend I picked the last of the blackberries from the bushes near my house in the Catskills and whipped up an apple blackberry pie.  My friend Dan taught me a new way to crimp the crust.  What do you think?

Two things I love- my son Natty and cherry pie.