Pie-eyed

Elder daughter's British version of the family recipe

Ah, Thanksgiving Day in Canada.

This is our fifth back in Victoria, our fourth spent in our present home, and our third pandemic Thanksgiving, although you'd never guess it from the lack of social distancing and masks.

We keep hearing of friends, neighbours, and acquaintances coming down with COVID.  So far, no one seriously ill.

Thanksgiving is neither my favourite holiday, nor my least favourite holiday, but, as someone who suffers from a certain degree of introversion, and a deep dislike of cooking, it's not the best occasion for a celebration that completely revolves around food.

However, I have daughters for whom this is a relatively big deal. Younger daughter carefully notes any special day as a balm to her autism and anxiety, and Thanksgiving is the day she either makes bread rolls, or follows the family recipe (from an ancient edition of the Vancouver Sun) for pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin pie is also the order of the day over in Britain, where elder daughter has lead her only slightly nonplussed flatmates (one Welsh, one South African, and one Austrian) through the ritual, which involves navigating a meal shared by two carnivores, one vegetarian, and one vegan.

Today, she's braving the London transport system with a pumpkin pie in her lap, to join her second cousins on the Resident Fan Boy's side: one Albertan, and one American.

We will miss her, as we have for the past five Thanksgivings.

Pie plight

Friends were dropping by for a potluck this evening, and I was to provide for the pie. Yesterday, I knocked several delicate and diminutive orange plums from an ancient tree near the farthest edge of this house-sit's enormous backyard. This morning, I rose, made a to-do list, which included making pie crusts and pitting the two dozen plums, arranging them in the pie crust and carefully weaving a pastry lattice across the top. I carefully set the timer for twenty-five minutes and went to put my feet up. When I heard the bell, I went to the kitchen and was surprised by the strong smell. The beautiful lattice was black and the plums were sizzling noisily. I had set the unfamiliar oven to "broil".

I glanced at the clock. 3:45. My guests were due at five. I grabbed the pole which normally opens and closes the skylights and pelted across the backyard. I swiped at the high branches of the plum tree while amber balls of ripe fruit plummeted to the ground around me with muffled thumps. I tore back to the kitchen, mixed a new pastry together and pitted plums precipitously, tossing in the other ingredients in rather the wrong order and weaving the lattice with rather less care.

The second pie, still a bit over-baked but definitely presentable, was ready shortly after five. The phone rang. My guests would not be arriving until seven.

Y'know, this summer is beginning to wear a bit...

Past pumpkin pies

The Resident Fan Boy sent me an email from work last week regarding a co-worker at his office who is fighting a long, almost certainly losing battle against cancer. As you will see, they are organizing a potluck lunch for September 24 (a Thursday) in her honour. Would it be possible for me to offer to bring one of your famous pumpkin pies?

So last night, I pulled two packages of mashed pumpkin (from the jack o' lanterns I chop into bits on All Saints' Day) from the freezer and this afternoon, baked two, as my daughters also hanker after my pumpkin pie, and elder daughter sets off at the crack of dawn tomorrow for a four-day school trip to New York City, and I need to show her that there are no hard feelings. (Mothers need to prevaricate quite a bit.)

Despite the rather painful nostalgia (yes, I know that's redundant) resulting from reviewing the Februarys of past years when I last participated in NaBloPoMo, I've been leafing through my journals in search of kinds of September. This morning, I came across this September memory from when elder daughter was nearly one and a half:

This evening as I waited almost in vain for the pies to cook ([RFB's]turn to bring goodies to the office tomorrow), I could see [eldest daughter] dancing beyond the closed apron door that joins the kitchen and living room. I had my "baby tape" on, the one I recorded to play during labour, and there was the baby in question, peering through the slats on the door and jiggling up and down, lifting her infant feet.

I'm not sure which songs eldest daughter was grooving to, the tape had two hours of my favourite slower pop songs. (Another had two hours of my favourite classical music -- the doctors in delivery liked it; one said, "I wanna hang out here this evening!") Here's a sample: my very favourite U2 ditty and, in my very humble opinion, one of the four sexiest songs ever:

Oh, and the oven was really old. That's why the pies were taking so long.