By SCOTT SAALMAN
Reporter Columnist
“Pumpkin pie, if rightly made, is a thing of beauty and a joy – while it lasts . . .” – Joseph Wood Krutch, naturalist
Do you want to make a pumpkin pie, she asks.
She steals my heart in the simplest of ways.
Yes. Yes, of course, I say.
We shall get culinary together, she and I.
Or so I think.
She hands me her trusty recipe book (Horn of the Moon Cookbook: Recipes from Vermont’s Renowned Vegetarian Restaurant by Ginny Callan) and points me to her kitchen. She remains seated.
This is no “we” moment, I quickly learn.
It’s a “me” moment, a test perhaps to demonstrate my worth.
It’s just me and an empty nine-inch pie pan, my fear reflecting off its glass bottom. A weighty responsibility has been bestowed upon me, the making of, at moment’s notice, a pumpkin pie.
I’m confident in the kitchen, but I don’t bake desserts.
I glance back to see if she’s joking, but she’s already lost to the laptop, as if Pie Making Man is as kitchen common as a whistling tea kettle.
I’ve helped make pumpkin pies before, though she did the heavy lifting, dealing with the most difficult of the recipe steps, each involving eggs: separating, beating and folding.
During those times, I admired her grace when cracking an egg so that the pointed end opens like a hatch to catch the unbroken yolk that drops from the remaining rounded end, the yolk miraculously staying intact and captured while the whites ooze into the awaiting bowl. I, however, am brutish around eggs, a shell-cracking oaf. I am to eggs what Of Mice and Men’s Lennie Small is to small, furry animals, the crack of my eggshell as haphazard as the crack of a puppy’s neck. So, while she addressed the eggs, I did simpler things, like measure spices: 1 t. cinnamon; ½ t. ground ginger; 1/8 t. ground cloves (add to this ¼ t. salt).
But that was then.
Now, it’s all my responsibility.
While her fingers crack at the laptop keys, I consider her nonchalance to be a display of faith. I don’t want to let her down. I want her to know I’ve listened to her and learned from her. I also do not want to let the pumpkin pie down; one of the greatest letdowns in life is a bad pumpkin pie.
I hold off on the eggs. I need momentum. I pour the spices in a mixing bowl, along with a 15-ounce can of pumpkin, half cup of half-and-half, and ½ cup of light sour cream. I add ¾ cup of honey, which catapults this pumpkin pie above all others, a hint of honey in each bite – hallelujah. The only thing missing before I do the mixing are the two dreaded yolks. Surprisingly, I go two for three, wasting only one egg, though neither separation occurs as prettily as when done by her gentle hands. I desperately use a forefinger to keep the yolk from plopping out like some detached, sunny eyeball into the puddle of leaked albumen.
I pour the yolks into the pumpkin mixture, stirring it all together until smooth. Then, based on her past directions, I use the electric hand mixer to turn the egg whites into a dreamy, creamy state. It amazes me how such a noisy, violent kitchen appliance creates such beauty in the end.
Gently, I pour the airy egg mixture atop the heavy pumpkin mixture, and with a rubber spatula, patiently, gently apply a down-across-up-and-over motion over and over until all evidence of white vanishes.
As the oven preheats to 425, I unroll a pie crust and form it into the glass pan, cut off the excess edges and then do what her mother once taught her: press my forefinger and middle finger onto the crust’s edge, keeping the fingers slightly apart; then I use my left hand’s forefinger to pull up the edge between the fingers’ gap, repeating this throughout the pie’s circumference, the dimples and raised edges providing an aesthetic appeal.
I pour the pie mixture into the shell and slide the pan into the oven. Fifteen minutes later, I reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake 45 more minutes – a bit longer actually – until the pie browns, loses its jiggle and fills her house with pumpkin pie scent.
I have done it. I have made a pumpkin pie. Nothing has filled me with a greater sense of inner warmth than thoughts of pumpkin pie during the holiday season, nothing that is, until making this particular pumpkin pie that she has taught me to make, for us, for her, but without her for the first time.
It will taste best after overnight refrigeration, along with, as she recommends, “tons of whipped cream,” stealing my heart again in the simplest of ways, all for which I am most thankful.
Scott Saalman also writes columns for the Dubois County Herald and the Evansville Courier & Press. He is now a proud Fishers resident. You can reach him at scottsaalman@gmail.com.