Too Many Pies
It's not as bad as it sounds
My father’s parents spent their retirement years in Oregon, which was a long trip for a visit when I was small and we lived in the Midwest. But once we moved out to Seattle in my teen years, it was a more reasonable drive to Papadon’s house. And so we went down every year for Thanksgiving, as did most of that side of our family. Aunts and uncles and cousins would gather, and we would tell stories and jokes together, and (of course) we would eat.
Let’s just get the complicated family tree out of the way first. My grandmother died when I was twelve, and my grandfather decided to remarry a few years later. It was shocking enough that he was “dating,” but then we discovered that the woman he was dating was my great-aunt Fay. Fay’s husband had also died a number of years before. She was my grandma’s little sister. The dating went by quick. Within the first year they were married. My dad joked many times over the years that his aunt married his father, and that meant that his step-mom already knew what shenanigans to watch out for from him. But you know, he was in his 50s at the time, so I think we all knew what he was up to by then.
When we called Papadon to let him know when we would arrive for the holiday that year, he told us very clearly, “Bring pie.” And so we did. I think we brought two or three, because it’s a rather large gathering of family, and we wanted to make sure there was pie for everyone. And you would think that this was good news for me, the person who loves pie above so many things in the world. But, alas, I was pretty depressed. You see, my mother cannot stand pumpkin pie. So she made apple and she made pecan and she made something else I don’t remember now, but obviously no pumpkin.
I never got pumpkin pie when I was a kid. I dreamed about it. I lusted after it. If there was a potluck in the fall or winter I would go for the pumpkin pie before any other food on the table. The scent of pumpkin pies within a ten-mile radius of my global position would hit my nose and send me into a spiral to FIND THAT PIE because that was the only way I was getting any.
But off we drove, south on the freeway for hours, the back end of the car packed with not-pumpkin pies ready for a feast with family. I was a teen that year, probably 15 or 16, and there were no cell phones, no tablets, no laptops, no electronic devices to distract any of us on the trip or once we arrived at Papadon’s house. Back in the day we looked forward to spending time together.
I have several cousins who are all within a reasonable range of my age. One in particular, though younger by a good stretch, was always my favorite friend to hang out with. She’s got my same dry sense of humor, she loves a good side commentary, and she’s always up for a little bit of mischief.
“Sup, big cousin?” she asked as we got out of the car next to hers.
“Nothing much, little cousin,” I said back. And then I watched her mom pull four pies out of the back of her car. “Hey, we brought pie, too.”
“No,” my aunt frowned, “Dad told us to bring the pie this year.”
A few minutes later another car pulled up, and another relative got out and proffered a basketful of pies from the back of their vehicle. We were up to ten at that point.
By noon we had twenty-three pies in the house on the counters. By the following morning, Thanksgiving day itself, we had a total of twenty-seven pies for twenty people. You may be thinking of this as a problem, but I promise you, teenage-me saw this as the solution. Because nearly half of the pies brought were pumpkin.
I’m going to skip the part where we gathered as a family and told funny stories, where we ate a lovely potluck style dinner together, where the adults played Scrabble and the kids played Uno. In fact, I’m going to skip all of Thanksgiving Day. It was good, it all went fine, and we ate loads of pie. But the best part was the day after.
For as long as I have loved Thanksgiving Day, I have loved the following Friday equally. Two halves of the same coin, yin and yang, Bert and Ernie (different, but clearly essential together) – the Friday after Thanksgiving is when you get to take the formal dinner food from the prior day and reinvent it. If you’re good at this, some relatives will curl their noses at what you assemble. If you’re really good, they’ll overcome their nerves and lean closer to taste your creation.
Little Cousin and I were the first kids up that morning. The house was slowly waking, we were not the only ones awake. We passed parents and aunts and uncles hunched over steaming cups of coffee and listened to Papadon taking an early morning nap on the recliner in front of the TV. The kitchen was our destination. We had talked late into the night about our concept. “It’ll be a pie sandwich,” I explained. “Two slices of pie for the ‘bread,’ one slice of pie between them for the sandwich contents.”
“We need whipped cream between the layers,” my cousin reasoned. “Like mayo. Or mustard. Every sandwich needs a dressing.” She was so right.
Aunt Fay was in the kitchen warming up a breakfast for herself (which is really a great story for another day). She asked over her shoulder if we needed help with anything.
“Nope!” we gleefully exclaimed. Each of us balanced plates and pie tins and whipped cream or Cool Whip on eager arms as we crashed into the kitchen table to assemble our breakfast feast. The sum total of pie consumed by us that morning was one entire pie. You’re wondering if we got sick from it, and I’m proud to announce that we did not. We were champions. In fact, in the course of 36 hours, I consumed 2.6 pumpkin pies by myself. It was a new record.
In honor of the holiday season, I wish for you all the pie sandwiches you can eat. However you celebrate, do so with reckless abandon.
Your trans friend,
Robin
Amazing! Pie sandwich...😅😂