World Piece
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Below, you can read the introduction from my new memoir. You can also watch my humble, homemade film about my round-the-world pie-baking journey. This movie is like pie; it’s not about perfection, it’s about the love that goes into it.
What people are saying about the book
“Part travelogue, part culinary adventure, part love story—and wholly delightful. You don’t need to be a baker, or even a pie lover, to enjoy this delicious book. Read it slowly, though, savoring the humanity found on each page.” — Eric Weiner, NYT bestselling author of The Socrates Express and The Geography of Bliss
“A delicious tale wrapped in a thrilling storyline. There is love, humor, drama, fear, and more humor. From Mumbai’s Dhobi Ghat to the most nuanced pie-making instructions ever written, you will be carried along on this bumpy, swerving, exhilarating ride by a wonderful wit and an infectious enthusiasm for pie and life.” — Bill Yosses, host of Baker’s Dozen on HULU, former White House pastry chef
“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.” — Robert Leonard, columnist, Deep Midwest: Politics & Culture
“In this brilliant, witty, and wild ride of a story, Howard bakes her way around the world, connecting with humanity to spread goodwill. In short, it’s The Kindness Diaries with pie.“ — Leon Logothetis, TV host, producer, and bestselling author of The Kindness Diaries
“Beth Howard’s delicious sense of humor, self-awareness, and sensitivity brings alive her personal journey, as it intersects with critical issues facing our planet today. Beth reminds us how world peace starts with small acts of kindness—like offering someone a slice of pie.” — Kathy Eldon, filmmaker and founder of Creative Visions Foundation
“Part call-to-action, part memoir, all heart, Howard takes us with her on a whirlwind journey to some of the most challenging spots on the planet. With a raw authenticity similar to Anne Lamott, Howard’s zest for life sings on every page.” — Libby Gill, author of You Unstuck and The Hope-Driven Leader
Synopsis
Beth Howard always dreamed of circumnavigating the planet; not to tick off a list of tourist sites, but to immerse herself in the culture of each country by making pie with local residents. Pie had healed her grief after her husband’s death, so why not use it to heal the world and promote peace? Hauling her rolling pin from New Zealand to Australia, Thailand to India, Lebanon to Greece, Switzerland to Germany and Hungary, Howard uses America’s iconic comfort food as a means for connecting with people in their homes, kitchens, and cafés. In each region, she offers pie lessons and, in turn, learns about the surprising origins of ingredients and traditional dishes—including pie in its myriad forms. During her demanding 30,000-mile, three-month journey, she meets charming characters, experiences uncanny coincidences, and finds kindness when she least expects it. She also encounters geopolitical unrest (past and present) that prompts the questions: Why is world peace so elusive? And what can we do to achieve it? She offers some answers in her feisty, often funny, always unflinching voice. Underlying her pie and peace mission is her personal story about overcoming fear, letting go of grief, searching for a new home, and making room for new love. In what could be described as Waitress meets Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Howard offers a blend of multi-cultural insight, world history, baking instruction, social commentary, armchair travel, and the comfort of pie, taking the reader on a deeply intimate, delicious, and inspirational global adventure. World Piece is a story for our times.
INTRODUCTION - How to Make an Apple Pie and Change the World
In the Before Times when it was safe to travel—when it was safe to breathe—I packed up my rolling pin, a paring knife, two plastic mixing bowls, and the bare minimum of clothes for both summer and winter climates, and set off on a three-month, round-the-world journey in an altruistic though possibly misguided effort to make pie in nine countries. Pie, I believed, could be a Trojan Horse for peace.
I had wanted to circumnavigate the globe since childhood. I don’t know why. Where do anyone’s dreams and desires come from? A mosquito of an idea enters your being, propagates in your cells, buzzes around in your brain with willful distraction, and no matter how much you try to swat it away it won’t leave you alone until you take action—satisfy the itch, so to speak. Flying around the world in one go, hopping from one continent to the next, decorating my passport with a jumble of exotic stamps, living the pages of National Geographic instead of just looking at them, was something that had always intrigued me—before I worried about things like melting ice caps and carbon footprints. A few fellow travelers I met had done it. Books had been written about it, including one by an environmental journalist friend who, after a divorce, took his kids out of school to visit the earth’s most endangered habitats; another by a guy declaring himself a grump searching for bliss. And, of course, there’s the Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days.
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Meanwhile, here’s that short film about my global pie-making adventure.