Sweety Pies: An Uncommon Collection of Womanish Observations, with Pie

“Women sharpen women. I’m convinced that you can learn a lot about a woman based on what she feeds herself and the people she loves; a woman’s recipes--especially her prized recipes--are a revelation of who the woman is: what she thinks, how she behaves, what she values, and how she lives her life.”
This is a collection of 70 such pie recipes, gathered from the women in author Patty Pinner’s life--family, friends, women who are part of her own personal history. What distinguishes this book is its utterly beguiling storytelling--each recipe is accompanied by a story told on the woman known for making the pie, from Sister Baby’s Buttermilk Pie to Miss Hatfield and Her Jelly Pies. It also filled with the truths handed down by our mothers (or that we wish had been handed down by our mothers) like: “An unhappy husband will ask for toasted snow” and “You don’t want a man who is jealous of nothing or everything.” This is a cookbook that’s about love, life, family, friendship, and community as much as it is about the recipes.