AMERICAN PIE: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America's Back Roads

"Pie just may be the madonna-whore of the dessert world," Le Draoulec writes. She guesses it has something to do with "pie's dual nature; the fact that pie is both sensuous and maternal. Sweet yet sensible." A single career woman in her mid-30s, Le Draoulec has the same conflicted feelings about her ex-boyfriend and ticking biological clock that she does about homemade pie and its meaning in the modern world. As she crisscrosses the country in a Volvo named Betty Blue with IBRK4PIE plates, what seems at first like a carefree road trip in search of the perfect slice becomes much more than just a whimsical travelogue with great recipes. The author journeys along America's roads less traveled and finds that while many traditional bakers are disappearing, the power of homemade pie lives on. "Many people believe that the answers to life's bigger questions lie in the numeral pi," one pie-loving mathematician she meets postulates. "Perhaps it's also true of the kind you bake." Le Draoulec's conclusions about pie and its place in her life are, like a good slice of apple, sweet without being cloying and tart without being bitter. Of course, a book about pies wouldn't be complete without the recipes, and Le Draoulec offers such roadside pies as Libby Bollino's Turtle Pie from Abbeville, La. (May)