Pie. Not the math kind.

Pie. I made the Thanksgiving pie. That was my assignment: make pie. How could I screw that up? Well, it was easy. And to do it in such an ironic and oh-so-fitting way? I must share with all of you.

I started out with the crust. Do you know that I am TERRIFIED of pie crust? Yep. I'll make bread, cake, cookies...even CREAM PUFFS for 200, but don't make me make pie crust. See, I never really learned from the master, my Grandma Mickey. She made pies that people travelled across the state of Alaska to eat. Her crust could make you cry. She never taught me that skill. Instead, she taught me to make cake. This is pretty ironic when you consider that she was the worst cake baker in town--she hated to make them because they always fell or cracked or were heavy or dry or--you get the picture. But she adored me and I adored cake, so the summer I wanted to learn to bake, she made a cake every day with me so I could learn to make cake. I make darn good cake. But I never learned from her how to make pie crust.

When I married Matthew, I discovered that his mom, Marilyn makes amazing crust. She has generously tried to teach me to make pie. However, she cooks like her son. Perfectly. Meticulously. And she can make pie and I am still scared and it is WAY easier to just let her make it. But she wasn't here last night and that was my assignment: make pie.

Now, other years, when I've been making everything else, I've taken the low road and bought frozen pie crust--hey, I'm human! But, since this was all I was suppose to do, and I would never dream of serving "fake" pie after my husband's amazing gourmet meal, I made pie crust. Long story short on the crust: yummy, but really very ugly. Buttery, flaky, crispy--ugly as sin.

To fill my lovely crust, I decided to make pecan--and chickened out. I was too tired after a day of pre-Thanksgiving crafts with 36 3rd graders, recovering from my birthday and cleaning for my arriving in-laws. So, we went with pumpkin and chocolate cream pie. Not just any ordinary chocolate cream pie--scratch double chocolate chocolate pudding and fresh whipped cream chocolate cream pie. Yum. I prebaked the crust and whipped up our favorite chocolate pudding. As "easy as pie". Pie number 1 done.

On to pumpkin. Now a little background on pumpkin. We have a standing family story about pumpkin pie that goes back to when I took Matthew home for the first time to Alaska. For some odd reason, my mother asked him to make a pumpkin pie while we were there. Unfortunately, we didn't have all the ingredients as listed on the recipe. For those of you who know my husband, you know that means: major issues. My hubby is stickler for recipe following. He and my mother had their first "fight" as he told her she couldn't tell him how to cook and she proceeded to make the pie filling and dump it in his finished crust. Unfortunately, the turmoil meant that she didn't quite get all the ingredients in the filling and the result: sugarless pumpkin pie. Not so tasty.

So, given a little background, I'm sure your avid little imagination can see where my foggy tired brain lapsed last night. After joking with Matthew: "Should I put sugar in it?" I somehow failed to put the sugar in. Yep, you guessed it. Sugarless pumpkin pie. Two of them. YUCK! Thank HEAVENS for the chocolate cream pie. And the fact that none of us were hungry--we'd all eaten way too much of Matthew's amazing dinner!