(Pearl Mallory pulling cart) (Street noises of cars driving) (Dog barking) (Car honking) (Sound of automatic doors opening) (Door chimes) (Bluesy piano music slowly starts) ♪ ♪ (Sound of wheelchair) ♪ ♪ (Woman stirs her coffee) (Wheelchair driving by) (Sound of elevator dinging and phone ringing) (General din of a lobby of a nursing home) ROZ FREUND: I was a very bright, unusual kid.

There wasn't one member of the family who in some way or another wasn't astonishing.

This is our Bette Davis.

Really, really.

Artists, potential musicians, writers.

It was a cross between the Marx Brothers, Tolstoy, um...and the, and Mesopotamia.

So, that's how I grew up.

Hmm... MAGGIE FEATHERSTON: I left Steubenville, Ohio after I saw that my marriage wouldn't work.

My spouse was unsaved, so his being unsaved made it very, very hard.

When I moved here, this was the first time that I learned so much about human relationships.

I had to, because I was a free woman.

And, I've, I've always been the kind of person that, I always look for people that are different.

(Bluesy piano music continues and ends) (Sound of Pearl opening locker) PEARL MALLORY: I've been here, I think it's around about 18, 19 years.

And I love to work with senior citizens, that's what I wanted to do.

We gets along good, and they say, oh Pearl, they call me all kind of sweet names.

I like them too, you know what I mean.

(Paper rustling) ROZ: She's one of the most centered human beings I've ever seen in my life.

Rome is burning and she's making the sweet potato pie.

She's simply like the little engine that could, goes on and on, and creates, and creates.

And, you know what comes to mind, Isak Dineson, you know, who in the last years of her life, because of syphilis, could only eat grapes and drink champagne.

No, it was oysters and champagne, and managed to go on creating.

Um...interesting.

(Pearl pushes cart around kitchen) PEARL: When the Lord makes each individual, he gives you gifts.

He give me the gift of cooking, a gift for singing, a gift for preaching His word, um, playing the piano.

I can do all that, and um, and I just love to cook.

It's a part of me.

(Pearl grabs box of potatoes and puts on cart) (Organ music) ♪ ♪ (Drops sweet potatoes into sink) (Sound of water coming out of faucet) MAGGIE: It's a basic goodness about her, because you don't live by natural food alone, you live by the spirit of the Lord too.

(Water rushing out from faucet) ROZ: It's very big and it's very deep.

♪ ♪ I won't be the same person I was before I ate her pie.

(Laughs) (Pearl plays the organ) PEARL: [Singing] ♪ Give me that old time religion, ♪ ♪ It will take you home to heaven, ♪ ♪ And it's good enough for me, ♪ ♪ It was good for him, The prophet Daniel, ♪ ♪ Oh, it was good for the prophet Daniel.

♪ ♪ And it's good enough for me, ♪ ♪ Just give me that old, old time religion, ♪ ♪ And it's good, good enough for me, ♪ (Pearl washes potatoes under running water in sink) ROZ: I think she is absolutely, quietly, authentically, divinely inspired.

(Pearl places pot onto stove) MAGGIE: When you're cooking, while you're cooking, you're thinking about people, that you care for and you love.

So, there's love that goes into cooking.

If before me, I had two pies right now, and I tasted both of them, I could tell you which one that was cooked with love mixed in the person's heart.

It's a human to human thing, it's not all intellect.

(Pearl scoops potatoes out of bowl into mixer, soft scraping sounds) ROZ: When I sunk my teeth into the first piece of sweet potato pie, and I don't know how nor why it happened, there was some grand, fundamental essence, beyond what I was chewing.

It's an open, unhindered space, where one can fly.

(Pearl scoops butter and places in bowl) ROZ: I now find orange, which is one of the hardest colors in the world to deal with, one of the most attractive.

The color of sweet potato pie.

I buy all kinds of orange markers and highlighters and draw pictures on everything.

It's the color of the pie.

It's kind of the sun.

Um...it's a wonderful, warm...brilliant color.

(Sounds of soft scraping, Pearl mixes potatoes in bowl) PEARL: My mother started cooking pies and I learned it from her, and I used to watch her do it.

And I used to love to do it, I'm a country girl, I love it and I love it now.

I use a pound and a half of margarine, four and half cups of sugar, I measured it.

I use two cups of liquid eggs, and maybe a little bit more, but the more eggs you put in a pie, the better they rise.

You know what I mean when, because they have to rise and puff up and then they brown.

And I use two and a half tablespoons of lemon, but you can use any seasoning that you want in there.

I can put a little bit of cinnamon, you want a little cinnamon in it, a little teeny bit?

WOMAN: Just a little bit.

(Sounds of liquid pouring and soft scraping) PEARL: And a cup of half and half cream.

And after you mix all of that together, you don't want your pie too sloppy, you see what I'm trying to say?

And you don't want it too stiff, you want it evenly, you know, light like.

You got to put your heart in it, and love and take time.

You got to want to cook, love to cook, put your heart in.

And that's what makes this pie like it is.

PEARL: (Singing) ♪ There's a gold mine in the sky far away, ♪ ♪ And you will find it, You and I some sweet day ♪ (Pearl continues to sing) MAGGIE: There's something basic about it, there's that natural goodness that comes from the earth, and you mix these spices with it.

PEARL: ♪ When we find, that long lost gold mine ♪ MAGGIE: I mean, you've just got something good going for you.

PEARL: (Singing) ♪ Far away, far away, ♪ ♪ You will find it, You and I some sweet day ♪ ROZ: There's nothing written that tells you how to do this, how to think of food as a creation.

What an essence of a human being, has been put into this pie.

PEARL: (Singing) ♪ Far away, oh, far away ♪ ♪ You will find it, You and I some sweet day, ♪ ♪ Then we'll sit up there, And watch the world roll by, ♪ ♪ When we eat the sweet potato pie, ♪ ♪ Up in the sky ♪ (Sound of whirring continues, Pearl places pies into oven) MAGGIE: To me, it's a delicious dessert, and it can be more than a dessert.

When I got married, you know, I started cooking for my husband on a regular basis, and he found out I could make sweet potato pies.

So, I would have to make six pies.

He loved my sweet potato pie so much that he would try to eat all six of them.

So, I would have to, you know, stand up as a mom and say, you're not going to eat all the pies, we have to save some for the girls.

But he would, uh... (chuckles) he would eat so much, so much that he would have to go to the bathroom more than regularly.

Even though, we are divorced now, every time he visits, he wants me to make him some sweet potato pie.

I don't know anybody in my race that doesn't like sweet potato pie.

(Sound of Pearl cutting pie and placing on plates) ROZ: In a world of nuttiness where nothing is enough, it's the energy, it's the gas in the tank, it's the, it's what keeps you moving, and you know what, what that pie did is it gave me ideas.

And I followed through on them.

(Sounds of a busy cafeteria with people talking) ROZ: That's fine.

It moved me into looking for other creators of other things.

She created this, but then I went out and I came up with all kinds of people whom I saw were creating what I consider to be authentic, if microscopic, arts in their life.

And I plucked them from where they were, looked at them and said, what can you do for me?

(Din of people talking in cafeteria) ROZ: [Taking bite of pie] Mmmmmmm.

MAGGIE: I know it's good, I've tasted it before.

ROZ: Yeah, me too.

MAN: Mmm-hmmm.

Yeah.

ROZ: Who's for whipped cream on Pearl's pie?

You want some?

WOMAN: No, thank you.

ROZ: Who wants?

You want?

MAN 2: Lay it on me (inaudible).

Ahhhhh... ROZ: Whipped cream?

WOMAN 2: No, no, no, not that.

ROZ: Pearl's pie...sweet potato pie.

Okay, where is the dance crew please?

ROZ: Those who can dream really have to be taking a chance.

Your audience awaits.

Minister Maggie is now going to (clapping) do a rap for the gang that she made up.

(Crowd starts clapping, shaking sound of a tambourine) MAGGIE: (Rapping) ♪ Oh...honey, is a compound word, ♪ ♪ It has double meaning, Now you've been told, ♪ ♪ Coming home, Is what it's all about, ♪ ♪ The place we all love, There is no doubt ♪ (Crowd clapping in unison) ROZ: I fly in my own head, and I wanted that flight to take shape in a different way.

Ellie, aren't you guys coming?

(Bluesy organ music intensifies while Pearl plays) PEARL: (Singing) ♪ Set this world, on fire, ♪ ROZ: You really have to be dreaming about something.

♪ He gonna set this whole world on fire ♪ ROZ: It's that split second where you're dreaming that it's gonna really fly.

(Splat of pies as they land on ground) (Cars honk and pigeons coo) (Bluesy piano music starts) ♪ ♪ ♪ Pass the butter, little butterfly, ♪ ♪ Oh honey baby, you're my sweet potato pie ♪ PEARL: They always come out the same.

I haven't failed yet, since I started making them.

And I guess the day I fail (inaudible) I might stop.

But I just love doing it.

♪ Potato love is deep, Potato love is slow, ♪ ♪ But you just can't stop it when it starts to grow?

♪ ROZ: I don't think anybody has ever made the kind of fuss that I did, over sweet potato pie.

♪ Pass the butter, little butterfly ♪ ♪ Sweet honey baby, you're my sweet potato pie ♪ ♪ Oh, honey baby, you're my sweet potato... ♪ MAGGIE: They're good.

You ever had a piece?

Real good.

♪ Pie... ♪