How Elegant Pie – the book – came to be
by Boschek
By Bruce Boschek
When I was about 10 years old I started helping my mother make pies. I learned to make the dough, roll it out and place it in a pie pan, make a filling (usually apple, cherry or blueberry) and fill the pie shell, then put a top crust on and bake it. Served with vanilla ice cream it was (and still is) one of my favourite desserts.
Then Karin came along. Shortly after I met her I was baking two pies for my birthday (in 1982) and as I was taking one out of the oven she rang the doorbell. It surprised me so much that I dropped the pie, upside down, on the floor. That is the way Karin’s relationship with pies began.
I went on baking pies and Karin liked them, but one day in 2016 she decided my pies were not as attractive as they could be, so she began trying to decorate them more artistically. I tried to explain to her that pie dough was not an artistic medium, but she didn’t listen to me. Instead, her pies became more and more artistic and I stopped baking. By the end of 2017 Karin’s pie had taken Instagram by storm, she had over 50,000 followers and a nice lady from New York, who turned out to be a literary agent, contacted us, insisting that Karin should consider a book about artistic pie decoration.
Within a few months a publisher, Andrews McMeel, agreed to publish a book if we could have the manuscript ready in 8 weeks! We both knew that would not be possible, so after some consideration we said, YES! Those were a crazy 8 weeks. Karin, who was still working full time at the university, would come home, roll out the dough that I had made during the day, make a pie and bake it. We set up studio lighting in the chapel so that Karin could take pictures well after midnight before getting a few hours of sleep and then going to work the next morning. During the day I made dough and worked on translating Karin’s notes. We took pictures of her making the pies for instructions so that the kitchen also looked like a photo studio. One day short of 8 weeks we sent the finished manuscript to the publisher, and a few months later had the printed book in our hands. That was four years ago.
In the meantime Karin almost has 100,000 followers on Instagram and if anyone is interested her Instagram account with over 300 gorgeous pies is @karinpfeiffboschek. You might also enjoy looking at her amazing artistically decorated pies on Facebook (Karin Pfeiff Boschek) where she also has some pie pictures as well. In addition, her website www.elegant-pie.com has many recipes and valuable tips for the pie maker, beginner to expert!
Finally, we are very thrilled that after four years Elegant Pie is still among the top-selling books on pies in the Amazon listing. Thanks to everyone who makes that possible!
