Last night was Thanksgiving Eve, aka, Pie Night. I was first introduced to Pie Night 10 years ago. I had just started dating D, and he had explained to me that Thanksgiving was a big ritual at his sister's. While he found that potentially intimidating, it was not an issue for me. I've never known the holidays to not be ritualized. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest 30 years ago, my Mom's family took me in for the holidays, which were mainly celebrated at Grandma's house in Vancouver. As the song says, "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go...." There were no woods, but the rest fit. My aunt, her stepdaughter and son, my brother, and I would carpool over the Columbia River to meet with the Vancouver family: Grandma, Grandpa, and my other aunt.
The afternoon was choreographed: appetizers and champagne by the fireplace, table set with Grandma's silver and good dishes, Grandma putting finishing touches in the kitchen and refusing any help. J would walk down from her house and stake out a place on the couch, heavy purse set nearby. L would sit next to her, elegantly dressed and sporting the latest hand-made necklaces and ear-rings. She would talk about the latest discovery and I would dip celery sticks into the cottage cheese dip. When he got older, E would be in charge of opening the champagne. Supper was eaten around 2 pm. It was a predominantly beige meal, with lefse and rutabagas in addition to the usual turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes.
Eventually I acquired my own car and was able to be independent of my brother's or aunt's chauffeur service. I would go over Wednesday night so I could help Grandma put in the turkey early Thursday morning. I still remember the year I forgot my glasses. I didn't want to put in my contacts at 6 in the morning, since I was going back to bed, so I had my near-sighted face 2 inches from the bird as I was washing and filling it up with stuffing and tying it shut. Grandma always said things like, "I can't remember how this works." She'd been doing it for over 60 years, but I understood. I still have to look it up the cooking time in Joy of Cooking.
After I bought my house, in 1993, I decided it was time to give Grandma a break and host the Thanksgiving myself. For a few years, my cousin was living with me, and we hosted together. My aunt's husband would be the chauffeur for the Vancouver crew, now minus Grandpa. Then he'd come into the kitchen to help. He would grab serving dishes and start mixing things up in them, using the good utensils, and he desperately wanted to carve the turkey and mash the potatoes, which was my cousin's job. So we would send him out to the living room to share appetizers and chat, and he would sulk. He did bring fabulous pies, and eventually I lightened up and let him back in the kitchen, which is where all the fun is anyway.
I still remember the year I forgot to turn off the preheat function (this being the old oven that didn't automatically stop pre-heating when the temp was reached.) 2 hours into the 6-hour cook time, I realized my mistake and called my brother-in-law in a panic, he being the cooking guru in my family. Since he lived in IL, he was 2 hours ahead of me. By that time, he was well into his holiday cheer. He burst into laughter and informed me that I had essentially broiled and baked my bird. Then he said, there's nothing much you CAN do but baste the hell out of it. I did that, and it turned out fine. Really, it's hard to ruin a turkey.
So the years passed, and various members of the family came and went. The Thanksgiving ritual evolved. 10 years ago, I was still buying Otto's turkey and stuffing, but now I was the guest of my aunt. I had not yet started spending holidays with D's family. However, on this memorable Wednesday night my back was in spasm, and we stopped by to use his sister's hot tub. D let us in with his key. We discovered the nieces and his sister in the little room to the left of the front door. One was lying her back on the floor, and the other two were reclining in rockers. His sister L was looking up at the ceiling with her arm across her brow, deep in thought. The others were equally contemplative. They looked secretive, mysterious, private. I was intrigued, and slightly embarrassed to be intruding.
D explained that this was an annual event, and they had a long night still ahead of them. It was Pie Night, and they had to make nine pies for the 20 or so guests that were coming the next day. Apparently they had already made 4 and were resting while they went through the process of choosing the other 5. On Thanksgiving Day the pies would be cut into 20 or so really skinny pieces and deployed down the center of the table. Everyone would take several slices, and L would keep track of what people thought of the various pies. Some flavors were fixtures. These were two types of apple (one with a crumble top) and two types of pumpkin (one with a graham cracker crust and pudding filling.)
The girls had been drafted into this duty for years, and I thought it sounded like fun. I expressed this opinion, and was invited to join the group the following year. I didn't realize that this was unheard of, but my participation was the thin edge of the wedge. In the coming years, we would be joined by D and his cousin and various live-in students. Also, as the years passed the nieces would begin rebelling against the formula. They started bringing the fixings for rum-based drinks, hiding them in the back bedroom and running in for tastes. They started lobbying for a reduction in the number of pies. One even skipped a year.
I still like Pie Night, though. I show up after work to find them all hard at it. L has gathered together ingredients and made the pie dough. It's made with egg and vinegar, as well as Crisco, flour, salt, and water. It produces a wonderfully flaky crust, but in recent years Crisco changed its formula to be "healthier," and the dough is very tough to handle. This year she experiments with a mixture of lard and Crisco, and it seems to help. She is rolling out the crusts and deploying her army to make the fillings. We discuss what to have for the additional pies. Every year she has an experimental pie. This year it is a cranberry pecan. I make it, as well as the lemon sour cream.
After the first few pies are in the oven, we sit down to a dinner of soup, cornbread, and salad. The soup has been bubbling on the stove, L has been building the salad in between crusts, and the bread has been baking while the nieces have been starting on the first fillings. The elder takes charge of the apples. L owns an incredibly fascinating gadget for coring, peeling, and slicing apples. It's assembled and clamped to the edge of the cutting board. An apple is pushed onto the coring spike, and the peeling/slicing mechanism is put into motion with a few deft turns of the hand crank.
This year I am later than usual, and, to my disappointment, I missed the apple part of the ritual. When I arrive, K is shaking apple slices in a large baggie, coating them with sugar and spices. Her sister had started working on the pumpkin chiffon pie, but stopped to do dishes. A sauce pan sits on an unlit burner, filled with pumpkin and condensed milk and spices that have yet to be combined and cooked. Later she would say that her pie was the first started and the last finished. She is wearing her grandma's apron, it having just been unearthed as part of L's de-cluttering pre-house-sale work. And she is clearly not in a good mood. Exasperation is the predominant message of her utterances and body language. Usually she is the humorously resigned niece, and her sister is the vocally indignant one ("There are too many pies!") I wonder what's going on. However, having already been dealing with D's snippiness, it's a relief to know this frustration is not directed at me.
Turns out she is unhappy because it's her newly-wed husband's birthday. She wants to be celebrating it with him, but she doesn't feel she can back out of Pie Night. Also, she is pledged to make pies for the Friday beach trip with his family. So, she is pied out this year. D commiserates with her, and they drink some overly fruity vanilla vodka concoction at the side counter. (The drinks came out of the back bedroom last year and are now a regular part of the event.)
After dinner, R and K's husband start building the table. They use plywood to extend the table so that it can accommodate 20 or so plates. The couches are rearranged at the end of the room by the fireplace, and the table goes down the center. I tackle my pies while D goes to work on the buttermilk pie, one of the more regular extra pies. In the past we have made a Nutella-based pie, with chocolate cookie crust, and I miss that entry. We also nix a nice coffee pie, a regular pecan pie, and various berry pies. We've never had mince, which doesn't bother me a bit.
It's all done by 10:30, and we go home, to rest up for further cooking the next day. I've offered our oven for K's bread, as she is also making the main turkey, and L's oven is cooking the backup/leftovers turkey. D is going to be making "bug beans," his ex-wife's excellent recipe, which uses bacon, water chestnuts, and a last-minute topping of parmesan. Etc. It's the usual food overload.
However, it is worth it. As L says in her grace, "we are thankful for the bounty in our lives and at this table, and for the many hands that created this feast." I am thankful that I have been welcomed into this family, and that I have been initiated into Pie Night.
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