PROLOGUE
I’m Lisa Louise Ludwinski, the owner of Sister Pie and the author of this book. I wrote this manuscript over the course of one year, sending out recipes to testers each month and camping out at my computer whenever I wasn’t at the bakery. As it turns out, I’m at the bakery
a lot. I struggled and stressed to find time. Even when I could pull myself away, I couldn’t shift gears. My creativity and focus were at an all-time low. “How’s the cookbook going?” would throw me into a dual state of panic and denial. I’d either stammer complete gibberish in reply or launch into a spoken novel, almost certainly leaving the inquirer wishing they’d kept quiet. I began to resent the project and cursed myself for not waiting five more years, by which time things would almost certainly have settled down. (Don’t quote me on that.) Finally, I decided to do the unthinkable: take one month off. I knew that if I could physically remove myself from the daily operations of the bakery, I could make my deadline. Thankfully, the fourteen other women who run Sister Pie were up for the task of covering the day to day without me.
I’m grateful for this opportunity to capture and preserve the spirit of our young, wide-eyed pie shop, reflect on our beginnings and experience, and share the joy, terror, and confidence I’ve found through repetition and improvisation in the kitchen. I’ve written these recipes in the hope that they will inspire you, through the whimsy and heart conveyed on the pages, to run into your kitchen and bake pie (and more) for the people you love. Make this book a familiar friend—if you’re anything like me, the pages will become stained with cherry juice, made sticky from spilled maple syrup, and be dog-eared, creased, and doodled on.
Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Ludwinski. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.