This week on The Write Question, just in time for the holidays, “piecast” host Lauren Korn speaks with “pie lady” Kate Lebo, author of the cookbook Pie School: Lessons in Fruit, Flour & Butter (Sasquatch Books). Since the first publication of Pie School in 2014, Kate has inspired bakers everywhere with her witty and encouraging lessons on all things flaky and sweet. This completely revised and updated edition includes twenty brand-new pies—including two new chapters, one on savory meat or vegetable pies and one on “difficult” fruit pies—plus updates to the originals (that’s eighty recipes in total!). In this conversation, Kate and Lauren dig into pie-making as a folk tradition, ideas of nostalgia and domesticity, as well as the ways pie-making is a lot like writing.
About Kate:
Kate Lebo is the author of the essay collection The Book of Difficult Fruit, which won the Washington State Book Award, and the co-editor with Samuel Lig-en of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze. She lives and bakes in Spokane, Washington, where she is an apprenticed cheesemaker to Lora Lea Misterly of Quillisascut Farm.
Kate Lebo recommends:
The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery (Sasquatch Books)
Berry Song by Michaela Goode (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
My Garden (Book) by Jamaica Kincaid (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Simply Tomato: 100 Recipes for Enjoying Your Favorite Ingredient All Year Long by Martha Holmberg (Artisan Publishers)
Chefs on the Farm: Recipes and Inspiration from the Quillisascut Farm School of the Domestic Arts by Lora Lea Misterly, Shannon Borg, and Kären Jurgenson (Skipstone Press)
Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life by Kate McDermott (Countryman Press)
Bubbies Homemade Pies by Ron Silver and Jen Bervin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Lauren Korn recommends:
Pie School: Lessons in Fruit, Flour, & Butter (revised and expanded, Sasquatch Books) and The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly by Kate Lebo (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Picador USA)
Pieometry: Modern Tart Art and Pie Design for the Eye and the Palate by Lauren Ko (William Morrow & Company)
Pie for Everyone: Recipes and Stories from Petee’s Pie, New York’s Best Pie Shop by Petra Paredez (Harry N. Abrams)
Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg (Artisan Publishers)
Also mentioned in this episode:
Baking Yesteryear: The Best Recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s by B. Dylan Hollis (DK Publishing)
“B. Dylan Hollis is Bananas for Vintage Self-Published Cookbooks” by Elisabeth Egan in The New York Times
Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia by Emily Hilliard (University of North Carolina Press)
The Joy of Cooking by Ethan Becker, Irma S. Rombauer, and Marion Rombauer Becker (Scribner)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor; and Aidan McMahan, sound engineer. This episode is supported by Montana Book Co., located in downtown Helena, Montana, since 1978, offering new books for all ages, vinyl records, and community activism. For delivery in Helena and shipping online, visit mtbookco.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss. Our music was written and recorded by John Floridis.
Funding for The Write Question comes from Humanities Montana; members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
