Pies are ME

This time of year I am always reminded just how much I like pumpkin pie and I’m always pestering various friends and family to make it for me. The last time my sis visited she bought all the ingredients but never got around to making the damn pie (credit where credit is due: she did honor me with a luscious apple pie). So there they were, all those fresh ingredients sittin’ in my cupboard; rarin’ to go. “Can’t be all that hard,” thinks I, and plunged ahead. Easy, right?First, you follow the recipe on the can of pumpkin. Then you take your sister’s suggestion that you double the spice amounts, that is, the ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg and also add a teaspoon (is that a dollop?) of rum. She makes her crust from scratch, which is way beyond consideration so I, heeding friendly advice, bought readymade Pillsbury pie crusts. It turns out, of course, that it’s all more work and more expensive than one counts on. My first try came out okay and good enough, I thought, to volunteer to make a couple of them for a recent potluck. However, since we all have our own taste(s), I figured it was okay to jigger the recipe a little bit so I cut the spice overdose in half and used whole evaporated milk instead of the 2% stuff my sis had left behind. Two pies this time; and (I think) two successes. At least the recipients of my largesse claimed it to be so. Does anybody ever really tell the truth on these occasions? Do I? Hmm…maybe I shouldn’t go there. I guess the proof of the pie is in the alacrity of its disappearance. So all the signs were positive, although I didn’t check behind the couch or in the plants for ditched desserts. If pressed, I might even try again using, of course; my own personal family recipe. Thank you Libby’s; thank you Pillsbury; thank you Bicardi.