My grandfather used to say, "Patient waiting brings pie." No one in our family was much of a pie baker, but we enjoyed many pies from the legendary Horn & Hardart's and Hanscom's, both originally Philadelphia firms. Horn & Hardart's was widely known for their Automat restaurants in New York, which featured those great fruit pies, as well as individual chicken pot pies.
The overall premise of this cookbook is generally to demystify pie-baking, and to use a rectangular shallow form the author calls a "slab pie." The idea is a larger, easier to cut pie with more servings that takes the same or less effort than the traditional round pie or tart.
Piecrust, in particular, can be daunting for some home cooks, and except for graham and chocolate wafer crusts, and because I can be impatient in the kitchen, I usually buy mine, along with commercial phyllo dough and puff pastry. This cookbook makes crusts easier to manage, and includes some interesting options.
There is an overall Southern cooking style influence to a lot of the recipes, and a few recipes the inclusion of I'd question, but there are enough interesting options for fillings for savory main-course items. Just about every ethnicity's cooking style and spices have made it into this book. It's a good overview for those who are just getting into international cuisine.
Quite frankly, it's not a cookbook I'd add to my collection, but I'd recommend it for novice cooks and bakers.
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