Baking and Bonding

Carve out time to connect with friends and recover the true spirit of Thanksgiving.

By Paula Schwed

A busy, accomplished woman I know preferred to spend last Thanksgiving in the hospital recuperating from surgery rather than celebrating the holiday at home with friends and family. She actually relished the break from the demands of the day.

For so many women, this particular holiday brings a staggering load of duties shoehorned into lives already brimming with obligations, arrangements and deadlines that we juggle ever so expertly.

Someone has to order the turkey after calculating how big a bird will feed however many guests, send the linen tablecloth and napkins to the cleaners, remember to hoard cranberries in case there’s a shortage, find the platter buried at the back of the china closet, hang one of those autumnal Martha Stewart wreaths on the front door and find room in the refrigerator for sufficient groceries to feed the descending horde for the remaining three days of the long holiday weekend.

How we yearn for the comforts of home at Thanksgiving – those Kodak moments where we’re surrounded by people we love, savoring good food and happy conversation. But the Norman Rockwell/Martha Stewart trappings come at a price, and it is usually women who pay.

Which is why it may have seemed like a stunt only a Stepford wife would pull when my friend Danica and I started baking pies from scratch on the hectic day before Thanksgiving, then invited our friends to stop by.

Neither of us could be described as domestic. You wouldn’t want to eat off the kitchen floor in either household. With challenging work, high-maintenance husbands and six children between us – half of them teenagers, need I say more? – our lives are overflowing. We are pragmatists who long ago stopped aspiring to be perfect and settled for getting through the day without having a disaster.

But on this particular Thanksgiving, my usually practical friend was determined to bake a pie every bit as good as her mother’s. I offered to help. My own unsentimental mother preferred to defrost Mrs. Smith’s pies instead of wearing herself to a frazzle serving a picture-perfect Thanksgiving to six children born within eight years of each other. I married a man who comes from a long line of pie bakers, and I loved the idea of joining their ranks, so I got myself a copy of my mother-in-law’s venerable Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book, circa 1942, and I practiced until the pies I baked were presentable.

Danica and I made pies together until she got the hang of it. It was during those sessions that we decided to share the pies, the know-how, and the satisfying sense of connection wherever a group of compatible women get together. We had so much fun that it’s become a hallowed tradition.

All day long on the night before Thanksgiving, friends come and go, shuttling through Danica’s cheerful kitchen that smells of apples and nutmeg simmering on the stove. We drink coffee, we yak, we laugh. One woman with a knack for flower arranging always brings an exquisite arrangement that she swaps for a pie. Others come by to learn how to bake one for themselves, or to leave a pie for us to tend in the oven while they race off on some errand. We trade holiday horror stories. We listen to each other’s rants about the impending arrival of a sister-in-law who never lifts a finger, or the uncle who drinks too much. We counsel kindness or confrontation. For those convinced their families are too dysfunctional to bear, we recommend treasured movies like Home for the Holidays or Pieces of April for comic relief.

One year I grew so engrossed that I forgot to bake a pie for my own family. My puzzled husband wondered, “What do you do over there all day?”

What we do is take a rare break to cherish what’s important. We stop and take time to fill ourselves full of what makes us happy and grateful.

In the South, churchgoers call it “fellowship.” Danica says this is what we do now that women no longer gather at the river to wash clothes on rocks and talk about what matters most. It puts us in the holiday spirit. Having done something for ourselves, we can give to others and enjoy the day regardless of whether our pies are baked to perfection.

The pie is not the point.

So before I start making those long lists of what to do three weeks, three days and three hours before Thanksgiving dinner, before I head for the woods to find seasonal grasses for that welcome wreath, even before I vow that this year I will make restaurant reservations instead – I spend some time thinking about what makes me thankful for the life I lead. Not the life I envision or the life my mother had or the life I see in magazines, but my own imperfect, blessed life. And I leave myself time in my holiday plans for the people and the moments that make me truly happy.

Two Recipes to Make Your Thanksgiving Even More Yummy

Apple Pie for the Ages

If you’d like to bake a pie from scratch, here’s the recipe that my children’s great-grandmother passed along. But don’t forget that Mrs. Smith’s version is pretty good too.

Filling
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 to 5 cups peeled and sliced apples
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter

Pastry
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chilled Crisco
6 tablespoons ice water

1. Add salt to flour and sift through a strainer. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut Crisco into the flour until particles are pea-sized. Mix water into flour with a fork until pastry just barely holds together.

2. Wrap dough and chill for 30 minutes.

3. Cut dough in half to make two crusts. On a lightly floured counter, roll each half into a circle about an inch larger than the diameter of a 9-inch pie pan. Drape dough over a rolling pin and unfold into the pan.

4. Fold the edge under to make the rim.

5. Make filling before rolling out the second circle of dough. (It’s useful to cut the apples and measure filling ingredients while first crust chills in the refrigerator.)

6. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt. Spread half of the mixture in the pastry-lined pan. Add apples and top with remaining mixture. Sprinkle with lemon juice and dot with butter. Unroll second pastry circle over the top of the pie and seal top and bottom crusts together. Cut slits into the top to allow steam to escape.

7. Bake on lower shelf in an oven preheated to 375 degrees for 40 to 60 minutes until crust is golden brown and your kitchen smells of baking apples.

Peach Blueberry Pie

Danica Kombol invented this pie recipe by accident when making a peach pie. Halfway through the filling, she realized she didn’t have enough peaches, so she threw in a handful of blueberries. The rest is pie history. Kombol implores all wannabe pie divas to embrace Crisco. “All good pie bakers know that Crisco is the dirty little secret of a perfect crust,” she says.

Filling
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 to 4 cups peeled and sliced peaches
1 cup blueberries
2 tablespoons butter

Pastry
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chilled Crisco
6 tablespoons ice water

1. Add salt to flour and sift. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut Crisco into the flour until particles are pea-sized. Mix water into flour with a fork until pastry just barely holds together. Wrap dough and chill for 30 minutes or so.

2. Cut dough in half to make two crusts. On a lightly floured counter, roll each half into a circle about an inch larger than the diameter of a 9-inch pan. Drape dough over a rolling pin and unfold into the pan.

3. Make your filling before rolling out the second circle of dough. (It’s a good idea to cut the peaches and measure the filling ingredients while the first crust chills in the refrigerator.)

4. With a wooden spoon, gently coat the peaches and blueberries with the flour, sugar and salt. Spread this mixture into the pastry-lined pan. Dot with butter. Unroll second pastry circle over the top of the pie and seal top and bottom crusts together. Cut slits into the top to allow steam to escape.

5. Bake on the middle shelf in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Decrease heat and continue baking for about 45 minutes. When juices start to bubble out of the crust and the kitchen smells delicious, your pie is done.

This article originally appeared in the October 2005 issue of PINK Magazine.