As Easy As Pie

I've been baking pies for most of my life.  I know this because, when I was in first grade, we were assigned to write down a recipe for a cookbook that our teachers would assemble.  I had to think of something that I could make without asking mom for measurements.  I finally remembered that I could do Cook's Treat all by myself.  So I wrote the instructions for making a pie crust dotted with butter and cinnamon sugar.  (Hey... that was probably my first technical writing job.)  I didn't do a pie, because I couldn't remember off hand how measurements for filling.  Pie crust did involve fractions, which they didn't teach in first grade at Enchanted Lakes Elementary.  Anyway, my recipe did not make it into the book.  I didn't feel bad when I saw what did make it.  There was a recipe for roast goose which involved wringing a goose's neck and popping it into the oven.  "Aha," I realized, "the teachers didn't want to know how to cook, they just wanted a good laugh at the expense of six year olds."  Teachers are weird that way.  We do grow up and become technical writers.

There are years when I've made upwards of thirty pies for Thanksgiving.  (Not my favorite holiday by the way.)  There is nothing easier than a perfect pie crust, which is why it is the first thing you teach little kids to cook.  This year though, it was not easy.  I ordered Thanksgiving dinner from the Claim Jumper (delicious, as it turns out) and I had bought some pie with the common frozen food industrial pie crust.  However, I knew that pumpkin pie really deserves a light and flaky crust.  Unfortunately, I have fibromyalgia and I was far too tired and in pain to make the pie.  I tried to slough that duty onto my son, who also learned pie making skills early from my mother, but he was busy killing imaginary people on the X Box.  After a tearful Wednesday night (mostly about how useless I have become) I decided that no matter what, I was going to get up and make the damn pie first thing in the morning.  There were more tears and a lot of shaking brought on my exhaustion, but we did end up with a delicious pie.  The industrial pies were good for what they were, but the crust on the pumpkin was so perfect that my teachers surely missed the boat by not publishing the recipe.