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| American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads | 
 enlarge | Author: Pascale Le Draoulec
Publisher: HarperCollins
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $0.31
You Save: $23.64 (99%)
New (6) Used (34) Collectible (1) from $0.31
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 820196
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0060197366
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.86520973
EAN: 9780060197360
ASIN: 0060197366
Publication Date: May 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Gastronomic Journey Across America November 20, 2006
Pascale Le Draoulec a West Coast food editor who has never tasted American pie has taken a job on the East Coast. She decides drive from California to the new job in Connecticut and use the trip to experience American pies. Le Draoulec tells of adventures and scenery and people she meets along the way. And she also describes regional pie favorites. Several recipes are included.
This is a must read for someone craving light reading and a good slice of pie!
Inspirational August 30, 2006
I could not put this down. I too can relate to moving from the west to the east therefore much of the allure of this book was reading about all the places I have been. The stories are charming. Wonderful, easy read.
Yummy! Loved It!! June 23, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I got this book at a library sale and had no idea what a treat I was in for. Great stories mixed with fun pie recipies. It's the type of book you can "dip into" when you want, or read it all in one sitting. I did make a great pie after reading this; guess I was inspired. Great gift as well; young and old...bakers and non-bakers will appreciate the easy to read narrative and tales from around the States.
 EAT Pie, don't READ about it! November 27, 2005
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
...or at least don't read THIS book about it. What a mess. This is one of the most nastily-written books that I can think of, and how can you be nasty when writing about something as delicious as PIE? I agree with the other reviewer who didn't dare donate this book to the charity book sale! Directly into the trash bin!
 Thelma and Louise go for pie November 9, 2004
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This books combines the perspectives of the roadtrip, the female "buddy adventure," and a food book all in one, as author Le Draoulec and two different female friends go on two different roadtrips to explore the world of pie. In her search for pie, the author encounters interesting characters and snapshots of America and Americana.
A downside is that the author's engagement is somewhat... superficial. By her own admission, her choosing of pie as the theme for her roadtrip is arbitrary. As a journalist always looking for a story, she is constantly on the lookout for certain tidbits, soundbites, and events of interest, and this renders a certain self-consciouness to the proceedings.
For example: In Memphis, an old man mentions a pie stop that local people go to after church: "I was glad he brought church up," the writer says, "because Kris and I had a hankering for some live, soul-searing spirituals." She goes on to describe their morning adventure as two 30-something white yuppie women in an all-black southern church. How phony, opportunistic, whitebread and contrived can you get? That, and a few too many predictable self-deprecatory "to hell with our waistlines -- we're eating more pie" jokes of the "Cathy" comicstrip sensibility -- wears thin after awhile.
Some of those aspects may be pet peeves on my part. But a very real problem with the book is a significant loss of momentum between sections (between her first and second pie trips) that makes it read almost like two different books.
All that said, this is a fun and entertaining book. It will make you excited about pie, and for cooks there are probably some great recipes. Despite some superficiality, there are some compassionate and interesting portraits of the people they encounter. And in the end, the author digs a bit deeper into herself, and finally connects with her subject matter. I found the concluding two pages to be moving and memorable.
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