Thanksgiving on Lamma

I like my pumpkin pies, so when I knew there'd be a potluck, I signed up to bring two. But making a pumpkin pie with no oven involves a certain level of commitment and a serious amount of travel.

I made the pie crusts on Thursday night after paddling practice and mixed the spices with the sugar. In the morning I packed up the crusts, mixing bowl, eggs, cans of pumpkin and evaporated milk, a whisk and a ladle. My commute makes it a little more complicated than putting all the things in the trunk of a car. I had to carry everything down the hill to the ferry, from the ferry to the bus and from the bus to my classroom. Then at recess I did the Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion, mixed up the first pie and put it in the microwave/convection oven in the staffroom. I was so amazed that I hadn't forgotten anything other than a can opener and the kitchen staff helped me with that.

Unfortunately once I put the pie in, I went back to teaching and forgot all about it. An hour and a half later I ran back up sure that the school's fire alarm was about to go off. But some angel had taken the pie out at just the perfect time! So at lunch I mixed up the other and stuck it in. I went back an hour or so later and someone else had taken that one out. It was slightly under-done, but still ok.So after school I taped together boxes to make a double-decker pie safe, covered them with plastic wrap, (thank goodness there are science experiment supplies in the project room) and carried them back down to the bus, to the ferry pier, home on the ferry and back up the hill home. There they waited safely in the frig until Sunday's dinner.

Heather and Matthew hosted the dinner and the other Heather cooked the turkey. Matthew wasn't the least bit tense about it.It was a tremendous success. Almost 50 people came. It was very much the antithesis of the lonely blue I felt last year at Thanksgiving. (If you want to read something depressing, look back at my posts around this time last year.) It was a wonderful community effort that created a marvelous feast. There were lots of babies and little kids running around which made it even more fun.

I love Thanksgiving and can't wait until late November because I think we'll have an American one, too. I'm only worried about hauling the turkey around to bake it. A crispy, juicy, dripping turkey is a bit unwieldy for a backpack.