Yes please!
It’s good that we have a national day for giving thanks…and stuffing more than just the bird. I have so much to give thanks for and I try to remember that more often than on a single day in November. But I will take this opportunity to declare thanks, “out loud”.
My past year “Planted at home” has brought me many blessings…good work, new friends, exciting opportunities and most of all, the privilege of being at home and present to and for my friends and family. It’s been a year of travel, loss, adventure, health issues, stretching the comfort zone, and much laughter along with the tears. The gift of time, at home – when needed – even when I’d rather be somewhere else, is precious beyond measure.
I am thankful for dear friends who support me, hold me up and cheer me on. I’m rich beyond measure on my paupers pay. Debra, Mary, Mary, Paula, Paula (yes, I have a lot of girlfriends with redundant names!), Sally, Terry – and the chance to reconnect with dear Lorraine. Without getting too “running with wolves…” these people hold a place in my life and I trust them with my heart.
My family of 4 is together under one (tiny) roof for the first time in years. Not always comfortable, peaceful or easy, oftentimes hectic, crowded and messy – I wouldn’t trade this experience for all the bedrooms and bathrooms in the cleanest house in the world. To be all together at the dinner table when someone blows soup out their nose with laughter is my prize; with all our differences, we are so good together.
I’m grateful for the “rightness” of things that seem so wrong at the time. From computers that blow up with deadlines closing in to caramel malfunctions. In a serendipitous turn to last weekend’s Blue Skies and Betrayal, I discovered a delicious, albeit inadvertent recipe for salted toffee. It would seem that if your (cheap) thermometer fails and you cook the sugar for too long…you get a lovely brick of toffee.
I’m still not ready to cut loose with my recipe, as I’ve clearly got some fine tuning to do, but steeping fresh bay leaves in the heavy cream before adding it to the molten sugar was genius! In my frustration with the sugar-based building material that was my result, I had completely forgotten that I’d experimented in that way. (I love bay-infused creamy desserts, rice pudding is another winner.)
The other night, I was working off steam and telling my woeful story (again) to my captive audience, i.e., my household, emphasizing my disappointment with a sharp crack on the counter with the parchment wrapped, (expensive) salt-laced brick of sugar. To my surprise it broke quite easily – I had this stuff pegged as the next big breakthrough for NASA space shuttles repairs. I tasted a small fragment and was further delighted to find I could actually chew it with my seriously-not-strong teeth…and, it was delicious! Maybe I’ll have to add a small mallet to this year’s holiday candy basket and call it good.
One thing I never mess with – or fail with – is my Nana’s Texas Pecan Pie. Brown, sugary, nutty and buttery – this is the HOLIDAYS for me (and my dad, and husband, and kids…) It’s simple, soulful and reminds me so very much of the woman who loved me best in the world…until I had my daughter at which point she switched her allegiance to her! This was explained to me politely, yet firmly some 22 years ago. Nana has been gone since 2003, but lives on in her many, many family members. Even today, as we grandchildren put together the annual extended family Christmas party our ideas must pass muster with our memories of Nana.
Today, I’m thankful for pecans, butter, pastry and the love of a woman who made a wonderful pie. Here you go, Happy Thanksgiving!
Nana’s Texas Pecan Pie
- 1 cup brown Karo syrup
- 1 cup white sugar
- 3 eggs, slightly beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 cube butter
- 1 cup whole pecans
Preheat oven to 300 F. Mix sugar, syrup, eggs and vanilla. Add pecans. Pour into an unbaked 9″ pastry shell (use your best all-butter recipe). Slice butter thinly over the top of the pie and bake in the slow over for 1 hour. Cool, cut and serve with barely sweetened, vanilla laced, whipped cream.
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Sweet and yummy and soulful…is there anything better?! Be seeing you very soon for…festive quelque chose…
Thank you for sharing.
pride go-eth before a fall. OF COURSE…my never-fail pecan pie…failed! Pecan soup is more like it! “but it still tastes good”, yeah, yeah, yeah. Research reveals that pie will not set if a) not cooked long enough or b) cooked too long and the “eggs break” Not much help there. Looking at countless recipes for pecan pie (there’s a good use of my time!!!) I find that most call for the oven to be at 350F. That’s really the only differential – that and testing with a toothpick til you get a moist-but-clean-and-not-gooey result. This little exercise together with my caramel does not bode well for this season’s candy making. I did get a new thermometer… s*gh
First of all, I am so happy to read this post, Lorene – my heart swelled when I saw that I’m in your constellation of girlfriends. I feel the exact same about you, you know! You are one big heart, made up of honesty, humor and love. We’re lucky to have you, those of us in Lorene’s world!
And on the pie thing. Last year, I made an undercooked apple pie and and undercooked pecan. You can be darned tootin that this year I carefully checked for doneness before taking them out of the oven. My fav. pecan pie recipe from Silver Palette Cookbook (at 400 degrees for the first 10 minutes; reduced to 325 for 30 more) still needed an extra 10 minutes after the bell. So I redeemed myself last week. And you can redeem yourself (and your Nana’s honor) next year, too! xoxo deb
Silver Palette and warmer temps it is then. If I recall they had some fine things to say about Persimmon-ish cookies! oxox
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