Friday, November 28, 2008

This Sure Isn't Ama's


No Thanksgiving is complete without pumpkin pie. Pumpkin pie may be Thanksgiving if you are in a country like Ecuador where simply thinking of standing in an unair-conditioned kitchen cooking all day makes you start to melt and break out in a heat rash.

We didn't make pumpkin pie last year, but it wasn't a big deal. Three reasons:

(1) Ama is the one who makes the pumpkin pies and she wasn't with us last year. She is the pie girl, I am the bread girl, Nana is the turkey lady, and Opa is the potato man. That is just the way it is. If Ama doesn't make it, I'm not sure if I want to eat it.

(2) Natalia and I were flying home from Ecuador to be with Nana and Opa on Thanksgiving. We started out the trip home at 10:00 pm the night before. Having already done this trip alone with a baby I knew that, while pumpkin pie rocks my world, my bed would rock my world more.

(3) Natalia wasn't eating solid food yet, so I wasn't depriving her of anything.

"Ama's the pie girl" excuse doesn't quite hold this year. We aren't traveling and Natalia eats solid food (though you wouldn't know that since we arrived in Ecuador - I'm used to her nursing a bit more when we are here, but seriously child, EAT SOME FOOD!!!)

So I decided to make pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin pie is not that hard to make when living in the US. Simply open a can of pumpkin, open some cans of evaporated milk, mix in sugar, eggs, spices and pour into crust. Bake. Viola - pumpkin pie.

Not so much here. Geovanny assured me that they have pumpkins here. But these are no North American pumpkins. The may be orange on the inside, but they are green and white and warty on the outside. And they are shaped like teardrops. And they take 4 hours in the oven to soften. Add a couple hours to cool before scooping out and Thanksgiving day is pretty much shot. I could have had a large turkey ready before this "pumpkin".

Now it is Black Friday. We still don't have a pumpkin pie. We MUST have pumpkin pie. So Natalia and I start scooping out the pumpkin.



Then we mash it by hand



I finally get it all mixed together and stick it in the oven. But our oven doesn't have any indication of the temperature it is at. Just a knob with the words "OFF" and "Min". They don't even tell me where "Max" is. SERIOUSLY!!!! So I wing it, just like I've been winging the whole thing.

Magically, it seems like it works. The knife in the middle comes out clean. The pie smells good. I set it down to cool.


Now if I could only find Cool Whip . . .

1 comment:

Unknown said...

So how did it taste?

We, too, have pumpkin pie stories! HOW can a restaurant run out of said pie on Thanksgiving Day? They did and I have to admit we actually got good mileage out of that sad event. OK, so I cried and whined. They brought me a square of pumpkin bread pudding with a light carmel sauce. Heavenly! Two nights later...your family can tell you!

Pics and commentary are fabulous. How about those bugs? Get the window fixed?

Love you,

Tia