Gobble Gobble

The title of this post pretty much sums up the way I've been eating since Thanksgiving (which, I want to mention, is my favorite holiday). Whether or not that gives me an excuse to eat excessively until a new year has arrived is another story.

This Thanksgiving I was pie queen. My time has been limited lately, since I'm spending all of it working on revisions. I did promise to bring dessert to Thanksgiving dinner though, and for me that meant two homemade pies. So during one long evening, I put the book aside, and got to work on something else.

The first pie I made was sour cream apple. The reason I chose this particular kind was because when I was about fourteen, I tried a sour cream apple pie, and I don't think I've had a pie as good since. The one I made for Thanksgiving was no exception. It's very sad, but I have a feeling I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to recreate this pie memory from long ago.

I also made a pumpkin ginger chili pie. This recipe evolved over time, starting at first with just a pinch of fresh grated ginger tossed into the pumpkin mixture. The progression, however, was natural. It was kind of like going from seeing someone a few times a week, to realizing you're now full-on living together. That being said, as I made my pie the night before Thanksgiving, I decided a spicy overtone might be a good variation and I threw some chili powder in.

Before baking, I covered the top with turkeys I'd cut from leftover pie crust dough. (I so rarely have an occasion to use my turkey cookie cutter. Homemade turkey-shaped cookies are just not something you bring as a hostess gift. There's always the fear that the present you're giving in earnest could be mistaken for a wildly bold assumption.)

I love how creating one thing always seems to influence something else. It's like spilling syrup; the bottle upends on the counter, and the next thing you know there's sweetness slowly oozing into the silverware drawer beneath. So as I got creative with dessert, other ideas were also percolating for the book.

Both pies turned out well. Everyone loved the sour cream apple, which was fine because they had nothing to compare it to. The pumpkin was also good- subtle and delicious. It had only the slightest kick; you took a bite and it bit you back, because sometimes that can be nice too.

My favorite part about serving the pies was that it meant I got to spend a night with so many people I love. At one point, every room in the house was overflowing with friends and relatives and laughing children. All I could think was, under this weight of so much love and good food, everything but the kitchen sinks.