A little bit about Amanda Wilbanks and her newest cookbook, Southern Baked: Celebrating Life With Pie\n\nGROWING UP, I NEVER THOUGHT I’D BE A PIE BAKER. A COOK, MAYBE, BUT NOT A BAKER.\n\nAfter all, my culinary role models were stellar. Growing up in the South,\nI was always a hands-on cook, raised in my mother’s and grandmothers’ kitchens, rolling out biscuit dough and stirring aromatic pots over the stove, shelling peas, and canning bounty from our garden. The hustle and bustle\nof it all was like a second language to me—one that involved touch and taste and smell as much as it did sound or sight. Then, when we all met around the table to enjoy the fruits of our labor, I felt connected to my family on a deeper level. I knew from a young age that food was my favorite way of saying, “I love you.”\n\nUsing our famous, all-butter crust recipe, I've compiled 12 months of recipes for all of life's special occasions. The recipes in this book are tried-and-true. Tested again and again in my own kitc