About a year and a half ago, we published “Pie right: Tips for baking pie,” Beth Howard’s sensible suggestions for anyone wanting to improve his or her pie-baking prowess. A few months later, Beth published a memoir, Making Piece, about how she regained her emotional footing after the sudden death of her husband — in part by baking pie.
After the school shootings last month at Sandy Hook Elementary, Beth and a cadre of pie bakers went to Newtown, Connecticut, to serve pies — at memorial services, for teachers and school administrators, for families, and so on — some 250 pies altogether. You can read about their efforts on Beth’s Facebook page. She and her friends eased the suffering of some in Newtown — if only by saying, “We’re here for you. Have a slice of pie.” It’s a small thing, a slice of pie and witnessing another person’s grief, without judgment, but it’s also huge. Small and big at the same time.
If you’d like to improve your pie-baking skill in the new year, you might want to revisit Beth’s pie tips; if you’re a visual learner, you may appreciate the infographic Ron Whitaker recently created, based on Beth’s tips.
