Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi all,

The clock just turned 2:00 a.m..

And I set here, curled up on the sofa, watching Bridget Jones's Diary with my daughter, waiting for a pie to come out of the oven.

I am only running about twelve hours behind.

John Lennon said, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

Well, for me, life is what happened while I was making Thanksgiving plans.

Nothing went right today.

I won't bore you with the sordid details. But all is well after one trip to the emergency care clinic, two hours spent in traffic, and four trips to the nearby Walmart Neighborhood Market, only two of those for food.

I had such high hopes ...

I planned my menu in advance. I read through all my recipes and drove to several different grocery stores earlier in the week, just to get all the right ingredients. I was making everything from scratch and we were going to have the hap, happiest Thanksgiving since Bing Crosby danced with ... well, you know the movie quote.

That was mistake number one, Over Ambition, one of the seven disastrous sins of the holidays, it'll bite you every time.

Mistake number two was refusing to accept that I was in the weeds and move on to plan B.

Mistake number three was the most abnormal looking pecan pie you have ever laid eyes on. More on that in a minute.

It all began with my son, who's a bit of a neurotic, like myself. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He's been watching these food movies lately: Food, Inc., King Corn, Fast Food Nation ... and well, he refuses to eat anything with corn syrup, saturated fat, Yellow number 5, pesticides, hormones, or preservatives in it, which pretty much cancels out everything except Kashi cereal and dried beans, and that doesn't make a very good Thanksgiving dinner. So this year, I set out to make everything from scratch - homemade pickles, homemade chicken stock for the dressing and gravy, homemade rolls - and that most dreadful and difficult of culinary tasks, homemade pies.

Pies are hard.

Me and pie don't get along.

And it just so happens that my husbands favorite Thanksgiving dessert is Pecan Pie. And the poor guy went to bed tonight with me cursing in the kitchen, trying to bake a pie. It felt like that furnace cursing dad in A Christmas Story. Tonight there is a cloud of obscenity hovering over my house, all in the name of pie.

And well, to make a long story short, and to spare you more of the sordid details, after two different tries, and a huge mess in my tiny apartment kitchen, and dirtying a half dozen bowls and pans, and spending three hours on my feet, I admitted defeat. And with no makeup on, and flour all over my brown suede house shoes, dazed and delirious, just before midnight, I grabbed my daughter, slipped into a coat and snuck out of the house while my husband was sleeping and traipsed into a nearby Walmart Neighborhood Market and bought a bleeping Pecan Pie.

It was so surreal. Like a scene from a movie. My daughter, myself, and a band of Mexicans oblivious to the holiday, strolling the lucent isles of the deserted Walmart just before midnight on Thanksgiving Eve.

We had a blast. There was something bracing and invigorating about the cold night air that seemed to wash all my pie worries away. Our serendipitous jaunt made it a Thanksgiving we'll never forget.

It is getting late now.
I just took the pumpkin (pie) out of the oven and it looks pretty good.

Must get some rest for the big day.

I never thought I would be saying this, but I am thankful for Walmart that stays open all night.

Happy Thanksgiving All!


Update:

It is 5:30 p.m.
A messy kitchen.
Turkey half eaten.
Family stuffed.
I never discarded the Ugly Pecan Pie. I decided it was best to save it and let my husband be the judge - because he's the true connoisseur - traditional Walmart corn syrup laden pecan pie? Or my version of Mark Bittman's Pecan Pie with no corn syrup, from his cookbook How To Cook Everything?
And guess who won?
Mine was best.
Err, Bitty's was best.
The pie was not that ugly, just different, as it was more of a custard style pie. The pecans have to be suspended in something, so custard makes a good solution, and the custard is not so cloyingly sweet. Much better.
But to Bitty's defense, I did goof a bit -
After whipping the eggs and sugar until foamy in the blender, the recipe calls for heating the mixture on the stove, then adding the toasted pecans. But I have a cheap, electric stove, and wasn't paying attention, and the mixture foamed and boiled and overflowed like Mt. St. Helen's. And when the pie came out of the oven, all one saw was a foamy, brown crust with no pecans on top.
A real mess, it didn't look like a traditional pecan pie at all.
Now the Walmart pie will probably wind up in the trash.
And I am thankful for this cookbook. The pie wasn't pretty, but it sure did taste good.
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!