“Southern Pies”, now out of the oven and onto the bookshelves and countertops!

"Southern Pies" cover --- an invitation to feast your eyes and head for the kitchen

Though I’ve had my author copy for a month, and the Chronicle Books warehouse has been shipping out advance orders for a couple of weeks, today is the official start of publicity month for my latest book, “Southern Pies: A Gracious Plenty of Pie Recipes, from Lemon Chess to Chocolate Pecan”. I haven’t gotten over it yet, not even close — still picking it up, flipping through, stopping to read something here, or gaze at a photograph there, happily and proudly distracted. The words and recipes come from my hands and brain, but the images and design come from artists who make magic, who take my creation and render it into something visual, tangible, and inviting, something that catches the eye of bookstore patrons and bookclub members and online browers and says “Hey! Notice me!” in a most delicious way. My gratitude to master photographer Leigh Beisch and her team and to designer Anne Donnard of Chronicle Books is bountiful and rich, like meringue piled high on a lemon meringue pie. To celebrate the publication of “Southern Pies”, I’m planning to make a pie everyday this month, and put it out on the virtual windowsill right here in my blog for you to share, visually at least. Some pies will be from this book, and some will be from friends, from vintage cookbooks, maybe even from vendors at the farmers’ market who have some autumn fruit to share. From today, October 1 until October 31, it’s pie season here in Piedmont North Carolina, so let me know what pies you love, and what pies you’d like to see. They don’t even have to be Southern — they just have to be pies that please and delight you in some way. Here we go…!