Thanksgiving Pies and Grandpa

When my family was living in Hurley, NY up until I was in the sixth grade, we had Thanksgiving at my grandmother's in Kingston. She cooked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and she always had a full house. She has a huge dining room table but not everyone could always fit at the table, so she would have a smaller table for the kids.

My Grandma amazed me because she could make large amounts of food and time them perfectly so that everything on the table was hot and ready to eat. She made her own gravy and I remember my Mom trying to watch how she did it so quickly because we always had trouble making our own gravy at home. Mom used to buy the jars of turkey gravy to have on hand for a backup emergency in case the gravy didn't pan out. I still do this too because I think it is a smart idea.

Grandma is pretty famous for her pies. She always made apple pie and pumpkin pie. Sometimes she would even make the pumpkin using fresh pumpkins from her garden. As I have mentioned before, I have tried this too and now it is something I will just leave to Grandma because fresh pumpkin and I just don't mesh well. The canned pumpkin is the only way to go in my kitchen. Grandma makes her own pie crust which is virtually unheard of these days and her crust has a touch of sweetness to it that makes it her own. Her apple pies are tart enough so the sugar doesn't take over and she always manages to bake them without timing the oven. She just knows when it is perfectly cooked and ready to start cooling.

Grandma always kept a can of whipped cream around for the pumpkin and then vanilla ice cream for the apple pie, which she served warm. Most of her guests would choose either pumpkin or apple and I would quietly make the request to have a slice of each. I would ask her when I arrived if that would be okay because I didn't want her to run out of pie, leaving someone else without dessert. I celebrated when anyone said they could not eat dessert because I knew that was a spare piece that I might be able to get my hands on.

I was raised with good manners, but sometimes the manners went out the window when it came to dessert. I think I first got the idea to have a slice of each pie when I saw my grandfather make that request. My grandmother happily obliged and she served him giant slices of each pie. She always served him first because I think she knew how long he had been anticipating dessert. Grandpa would have the biggest smile on his face when she set the dessert plates in front of him. Grandpa was a very talkative man, always had a funny joke to tell or a baseball game to discuss. When dessert was served, he was silent. I would watch him enjoy Grandma's baking and you could tell that it was his favorite. It was my favorite too.

One time my family was the first to arrive on Thanksgiving Day and we got to spend some time with Grandma in the kitchen before all of the other guests arrived. Grandpa would sit at the kitchen table and watch Grandma cook. She would be running back and forth to the refrigerator, down to the basement and into the dining room to set the table.

There was a point where Grandma needed to rest her pies on the kitchen table in front of me and my Grandpa. We stared at the pies and counted how many hours it was before we could even have a taste. He said, "Wouldn't you love to just dig into a piece of pie right now?" Of course I said, "Yes!" and he said that Grandma would never let him because it would spoil his dinner. I told him my Mom would tell me the same thing.

Grandma disappeared to the basement and my Grandpa told me to look in the fridge. I opened the fridge and behind so many other things, there was a pie tin with pumpkin pie. It was almost gone as Grandma must have baked this one at the beginning of the week for Grandpa. I quickly grabbed the tin and the can of whipped cream. I remember that when I put the whipped cream on the piece of pie, Grandpa coughed as if to cover up the sound the can makes so Grandma couldn't hear us. This made me laugh.

I grabbed two forks and we began eating the last slice right out of the tin. Then we heard Grandma's footsteps coming up the basement stairs. I took the tin and put it on the chair next to me. Whenever she stepped away to get the china out or set the silverware, we would dig back into the pie. We finished in record time and Grandma never knew that we had sneaked a piece of her pie. Having dessert before dinner was one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories and it is a secret that my grandfather and I had together. Until now, of course. I think of him every time I have dessert and I think how fun it would be to eat it before dinner again. If I ever have the chance to sneak dessert before Thanksgiving again, I will have to sneak two pieces- one for me and one for Grandpa.